A rendering of Akridge's planned 190K SF office building at 2100 L St. NW

Thetrophy office building planned at the corner of 21st and L streets NW will not deliver for at least two years, buta major tenant is already in talks to lease its top four floors.

Law firm Morrison & Foersteris in negotiationsto anchor2100 L St. NW, the 190K SF building being developed by Akridge, COPT and Argos Group, according to a CBRE market report.

The lease continues a trend of law firms flocking to the top of trophy office buildings, leaving the lower floors vacant. Of seven office buildings currently or soon-to-be under construction in D.C.'s core submarket, 1.5M SF has been leased in the top stack of the building, with 1.1M SF still available on the lower floors, according to CBRE.

Goodwin Procter is movingto the top three floors of JBG Smith's 1900 N development, as the developer looks to lease the bottom six floors. That project, also in the Golden Triangle BID, broke ground in April once the lease was signed and is also slated for a late 2019 delivery.

Clearly Gottlieb is set to take the top five floorsof Skanska's 2112 Pennsylvania Ave. NW when it delivers next year, as the bottom five floors remain available.

Most of these are law firms, and it's a matter of status and branding that they have a tendency to go to the highest-quality building in the best space, CBRE research manager Wei Xie said. Some of them have been in their previous space for years, so this is a chance to upgrade to the latest and greatest space with the best view and branding opportunities.

Tenants looking to lease the lower floors of these buildings can see up to a 10% discount from the top-floor rent, according to CBRE. But law firms typically don't want to share a building with another law firm, Xie said, so the lower floors of new buildings tend to attract nonprofits, creative companies or co-working tenants.

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With New Law Firm Leases, DC's Office Buildings Are Getting Top-Heavy - Bisnow

DPR Construction buys midtown office building for redevelopment Sacramento Business Journal The building at 1801 J St. Enlarge. The building at 1801 J St. Ben van der Meer | Sacramento Business Journal. DPR Construction has bought a two-story, 26,872-square-foot office building in midtown Sacramento for redevelopment and future occupancy.

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DPR Construction buys midtown office building for redevelopment - Sacramento Business Journal

BBJ

Thursday, June 29, 2017, 10:20

Real estate developer Redwood Real Estate Holding has recently started construction on a speculative basis of the 5,000 square-meter, A+ category, LEED Platinum pre-certified Ecodome office building in the heart of Buda, according to a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal by Cushman & Wakefield, representing the landlord.

The construction of the property is being carried out by Swietelsky, while international real estate advisor Cushman & Wakefield is acting as the exclusive leasing agent. Set to be delivered in Q2 2018, Ecodome is a fresh addition to the Central Buda office submarket, which has been struggling in recent years with no new stock delivered, the press release notes.

We are proud to be mandated with the exclusive leasing of this landmark building. The location and the high quality lets us foresee the speedy lease-up of the office areas as occupiers seek new space in the Central Buda submarket, said Tamara Sznt, Associate and Head of Office Agency at Cushman & Wakefield in Budapest.

The state-of-the-art Ecodome office building combines modernity with classic atmosphere. Our aim is to create an outstanding, super-green landmark project in this sought-after location. This building with all its features, services, amenities and social areas is the perfect accommodation for larger and smaller, local and international occupiers as well, added Blint Erdei, owner at Redwood Real Estate Holding (formerly known as B&L Estates).

Ecodome aims to create an inspiring and efficient working environment which is sustainable and costs less by applying energy-saving systems in accordance with the LEED Platinum Certificate. Among on-site services, Ecodome is set to provide a whole array of amenities, such as an in-house restaurant, rooftop terrace, bicycle parking with lockers and shower room, and charging points for electric vehicles.

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Ecodome office building construction begins - Budapest Business Journal

Conceptual drawing of proposed net-zero building the Sustainable Energy Fund plans to build in Schnecksville (Contributed)

The Sustainable Energy Fund of Upper Macungie Township today closed on the sale of a parcel of land in Schnecksville where it plans to construct a net-zero office building a building that produces as much or more energy than it uses.

The project is expected to cost about $4.5 million.

John Costlow, president and CEO of the fund, said a conceptual plan has been designed for a building that will use innovative technologies for lighting and heating the building and will be run on solar power.

Sustainable Energy Fund will occupy part of the space and will lease the remaining offices to local businesses.

The construction of this building will allow Sustainable Energy Fund to further promote and fulfill our mission and educational goals while allowing local businesses to be more sustainable, Costlow said.

The fund will put out a request for proposals for an architect to design the structure and a contractor to build it.

Construction is expected to take about two years.

Costlow said by having the organization in a net-zero building, he hopes to raise awareness for such building techniques.

He said the fund also hopes to use the building to educate the public on net zero technology by hosting educational sessions about the technology, as well as additional sessions on general sustainability on-site.

Writer and online editor Stacy Wescoe has her finger on the pulse of the business community in the Greater Lehigh Valley and keeps you up-to-date with technology and trends, plus what coworkers and competitors are talking about around the water cooler and on social media. She can be reached at stacyw@lvb.com or 610-807-9619, ext. 4104. Follow her on Twitter at @morestacy and on Facebook. Circle Stacy Wescoe on Google+.

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SEF buys land for $4.5M net-zero office building - Lehigh Valley Business

The efforts that go into designing a parking garage will likely never be acknowledged in the same way as the work that's done to bring a sparkling skyscraper out of the ground. However, the structures that are a fixture in most American cities serve a vital, practical need.

But the basic parking garage isn't so basic anymore, particularly because municipalities and the people who live near high-traffic and congested areas are insisting that developers envision their projects in such a way that will either encourage the use of mass transit or camouflage them so that they will be integrated as seamlessly as possible into the aesthetic of associated buildings and public gathering areas.

For instance, Seattle has chosen to steer development away from parking structures that tower over streets and sidewalks along with office buildings, residential high-rises and hotels, according to Phil Greany, construction executive at Mortenson'sSeattle office.

Seattle is in the midst of a tech company-driven building boom, and, according to Greany, those workers often want to live, work and play in the same neighborhood, so cars and parking are a secondary concern. Amazon employees, for example, who live near company headquarters can walk to and from work instead of driving.

The city has also reinforced the urban, walkable sensibility by encouraging developers to design with pedestrian access in mind and include features like "parklets" where on-street parking spaces would normally be located. Seattle promotes underground parking when possible, along with design that "camouflages" parking garages so that they can blend in with the greenery that lines many streets, according to Greany.

Along those lines, Al Carroll, executive vice president for McCarthy Building Companies' Southern California division, said that he is seeing the increased use of parking garage "wraps" when it comes to mid-rise, multifamily residential buildings. "The residential building wraps around the parking structure, concealing its exterior from view," he said.

Carroll noted, though, that because the floor-to-floor height of each level of the garage must usually match up with the relatively lower floor-to-floor height of a typical multifamily building, the design is sometimes not as efficient as a detached parking garage that is common next to an office building or some other commercial project.

However, some new parking garage design trends even mandates are easier to deliver than others.

Paul Commito, senior vice president of development at Brandywine Realty Trust, said that city planners in Philadelphia, where the company built the city's first elevated park on top of a University City-area parking garage, prefers below-grade parking.

The city wants its citizens to be less "parking-dependent" and requires developers of new parking structures to go through a special review process if they want to build a traditional, above-ground facility, according to Commito.

"The only problem is that the urban environment makes it almost prohibitively expensive to go underground with parking," he said.

Most owners, Carroll said, will try to keep the parking structure above-grade when the zoning and site conditions allow. "While integrating below-grade parking with an above-grade mixed-use [or] office facility results in a much smaller building footprint requiring less land use, it increases the cost of the subterranean parking component significantly, which is already at a high premium compared to above-grade structures," he said.

Another consideration when going underground with parking is the type of soil, according to Scott Desharnais, executive vice president at Moss Construction Management. "With the new soil-mixing technology, it has become more economically feasible to put parking underground. This has been particularly important in dense areas where land is scarce," he said.

Even so, Desharnais said that the deepest parking structures the company has seen are only two levels underground. "We could see basements go lower in the future as the soil-mixing technology becomes more common," he said. "For now, on most large buildings requiring a lot of parking, we will still normally see several floors above grade."

So, how does one make those above-ground, concrete parking garages more sustainable and slightly easier for forward-thinking city planners to accept? To put it simply, developers are turning them green with elements like electric car-charging stations, green space and solar power.

Commito said that because of the availability of a wide variety of transportation options in Philadelphia, the company's Cira Centre project, a transit-oriented, mixed-use commercial project along the Schuylkill River, was able to transform the top of the complex's parking garage into a park, as well as a stormwater management system and green roof.The park opened about a year and a half ago and has "proven to be well-received," Commito said.

Solar power and electric charging stations go hand-in-hand at a few of real estate development firm DANAC's parking garages. C.J. Colavito, director of engineering for Standard Solarwhich installed the solar panels on at least two of DANAC's parking structures said solar pays off financially for building owners, so it's not so much a case of trying to make a parking garage look better, but of making economic sense.

Electric car charging stations, though, are a different matter. "It's a chicken and egg situation," Colavito said. Employers might want to install them if they see their employees using them, but employees might not invest in an electric car if their employer puts a charging station in the parking facility. It's not a moneymaker like solar, he said, but more of a perk for the public and a building's tenants or workers.

Cities and local governments are playing a role in this area as well, Colavito said, because green initiatives like solar, stormwater and charging stations sometimes also come with sizeable grants that make including them in a project financially worthwhile.

So what does the future hold for the parking garage?

"The trend were seeing is that a greater proportion of the population is moving to cities [and] urban areas," Carroll said. This is going to require urban planners to make allowances for the increased population, and to determine how those extra people will move around an increasingly dense area in the most efficient way possible.

"Public transit and driverless vehicles will definitely cause some reduction in demand for structured parking facilities," he added, although driverless vehicle technology is still in the early stages of development.

Millennials will also influence the demand for parking spaces. This demographic, Carroll said, does not put as high a value on car ownership as older generations do, with many viewing it as a waste of time and resources. A significant portion would rather use mass transit or ride hailing services, he said, allowing them to be social during commutes and leaving the driving to someone else.

Some owners, he said, have anticipated the shift away from parking garages and are thinking about designing parking structures with greater floor-to-floor heights and other design elements that will allow them to repurpose the buildings into multifamily, retail, office and other types of mixed-use facilities in case parking demand starts to plummet.

Desharnais said his company has also seen the trend of fewer freestanding garages in favor of those that are integrated into a specific project. And with the help of car lifts, which allow two or three cars to be stacked into one space, the footprint of garages is shrinking as well.

However, the most impactful change to the future of parking structures, Desharnais said, will come from cities and local governments. "Most municipalities still require a certain amount of parking spaces for each residential unit," he said. "In the future, if they would relax this requirement, it could spur more urban development and discourage people from driving."

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What's driving the future of parking garage design? - Construction Dive

Construction on the 54,000-square-foot building will start in August at the site of the former State Farm Insurance building off Radio Drive and south of Interstate 94.

The project is scheduled to wrap up early 2018 as part of the office phase of the 100-acre CityPlace development.

The building will be located near the The Tria Orthopaedic Center, which is scheduled to open this summer.

The next stretch of construction, for which Council approved plans Jun 28, will include seven office buildings, a new restaurant space and the site's third hotel.

Minnesota Gastroenterology, a medical group specializing in treating gastrointestinal disorders, leased about one-third of the medical office building in early June.

The Woodbury site would be one of nine locations the group operates throughout Minnesota. Other offices are in Bloomington, Coon Rapids, Eagan, Maplewood, Minneapolis, Plymouth and St. Paul.

CityPlace developer Elion Partners completed the project's retail phase, which included the addition of Whole Foods, Nordstrom Rack, La-Z-Boy Home Furnishings, and the Residence Inn by Marriott.

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Woodbury council approves next CityPlace development phase - Woodbury Bulletin

The Department of Education should be able to move back into its office complex within a year, County Commissioners were told last week.

A construction manager and architect/engineering firm are in place for the project, so designs leading to the construction bid process can begin soon, said David Longmire, Director of Safety and Facilities for the county.

The central office building has been empty since July 2015 due to mold problems. Commissions facilities committee recommended that up to $1 million be set aside for renovation of the structure, but Commission took more of a first step approach with a $450,000 allocation.

McSpadden, Inc., is the construction manager for the renovation project. Longmire, County Mayor Alan Palmieri, County Finance Director Langdon Potts, and Commission Chairman Jimmy Carmichael serve on a committee directing the project.

The historic brick structure was built as a county jail at the same time as the 1845 courthouse next door. Last October, Commissioners agreed to use $450,000 in retainage funds from the high school construction project to remove mold from the building, replace the heating and air system, and hire a construction manager and engineer for the project. Other aspects of the up to $1 million project would be bid as alternates, to be decided on by Commission later.

The Education Department currently occupies the second floor of the First Tennessee Bank building in Dandridge. The County is paying $4,875 per month in rent.

Commission meets Thursday evening to vote on its over $100 million annual budget, which includes no property tax increase.

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Central Office work to begin soon - The Standard Banner

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) formerly known as the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB) and even earlier as the State, War, and Navy Building is a U.S. government building situated just west of the White House in the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C. Maintained by the General Services Administration, it is occupied by the Executive Office of the President, including the Office of the Vice President of the United States.

Located on 17th Street NW, between Pennsylvania Avenue and New York Avenue, and West Executive Drive, the building, commissioned by President Ulysses S. Grant, built between 1871 and 1888, on the site of the original 1800 War/State/Navy Building[3] and the White House stables, in the French Second Empire style, is a National Historic Landmark [clarification needed]. It was for years the world's largest office building, with 566 rooms and about ten acres of floor space. Many White House employees have their offices in the massive edifice.

In 1802 the Washington Jockey Club lay at the rear of what is now the site of Decatur House at H Street and Jackson Place, crossing Seventeenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue to Twentieth Street today the Eisenhower Executive Office Building having been completed only 4 years earlier in 1798 as the stonemasons had finished the brick and painters applied white paint to the President's House.

The buildingoriginally called the State, War, and Navy Building because it housed the Departments of State, War, and the Navywas built between 1871 and 1888 in the French Second Empire style.[4]

It was designed by Alfred B. Mullett, Supervising Architect. Patterned after French Second Empire architecture that clashed sharply with the neoclassical style of the other Federal buildings in the city, it was generally regarded with scorn and disdain, and Mullett, the exterior architect, ended his life by suicide, while in litigation. The OEOB was referred to by Mark Twain as "the ugliest building in America."[5] President Harry S. Truman called it "the greatest monstrosity in America."[6] Historian Henry Adams called it Mullett's architectural infant asylum.[7]

Much of the interior was designed by Richard von Ezdorf using fireproof cast-iron structural and decorative elements, including massive skylights above each of the major stairwells and doorknobs with cast patterns indicating which of the original three occupying departments (State, Navy, or War) occupied a particular space. The total cost to construct the building came in at $10,038,482.42 when construction ended in 1888, after 17 years. The original tenants of the building quickly outgrew it and finally vacated it completely in the late 1930s. The building gradually came to be seen as inefficient and was nearly demolished in 1957. In 1969, the building received the highest recognition possible, becoming a National Historic Landmark.[8]

In 1981, plans began to restore all the "secretary of" suites. The main office of the Secretary of the Navy was restored in 1987 and is now used as the ceremonial office of the Vice President of the United States. Shortly after September 11, 2001, the 17th Street side of the building was vacated and has since been modernized. The building continues to house various agencies that compose the President's Executive Office, such as the Office of the Vice President, the Office of Management and Budget, and the National Security Council. Its most public function is that of the Vice President's Ceremonial Office, which is mainly used for special meetings and press conferences.[9]

Many celebrated national figures have participated in historical events that have taken place within the Old Executive Office Building. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush all had offices in this building before becoming President. It has housed 16 Secretaries of the Navy, 21 Secretaries of War, and 24 Secretaries of State. Sir Winston Churchill once walked its corridors and Japanese emissaries met there with Secretary of State Cordell Hull after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. President Herbert Hoover occupied the Secretary of the Navy's office for a few months following a fire in the Oval Office on Christmas Eve 1929. President Eisenhower held the first televised Presidential news conference in the building's Indian Treaty Room (Room 474) on January 19, 1955.[10]

In more recent history, Richard Nixon had a private office there during his presidency, where his secret taping system recorded some of the conversations that proved the Watergate scandal. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was the first in a succession of Vice Presidents who have had offices in the building.[9] The first wife of a Vice President to have an office in the building was Marilyn Quayle, wife of Dan Quayle, Vice President to George H.W. Bush.[citation needed]

The Old Executive Office Building was renamed the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building when President Bill Clinton approved legislation changing the name on November 9, 1999. President George W. Bush participated in a rededication ceremony on May 7, 2002.[11]

A small fire on December 19, 2007 damaged an office of the vice-president's staff and included the VP ceremonial office.[12][13] According to media reporting, the office of the Vice President's Political Director, Amy Whitelaw, was heavily damaged in the fire.[14]

Eisenhower Executive Office Building faade

Executive Office Building

Hallway with decorative elements

A skylight above a staircase

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Eisenhower Executive Office Building - Wikipedia

By Pamela Johnson

Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Construction will begin July 5 on the new Larimer County office building in Loveland, located at First Street and Denver Avenue. (Special to the Reporter-Herald)

FORT COLLINS Construction of the new Larimer County building in Loveland will begin July 5 with the first piece of the contract approved Tuesday and an official groundbreaking on Thursday.

The county commissioners approved a contract Tuesday with Haselden Constuction for $3.2 million, the cost of the footings, foundation, framework and shell of the 46,000-square-foot building at First Street and Denver Avenue.

The vote was 2-0 with Tom Donnelly and Lew Gaiter voting, and Steve Johnson absent from the administrative matters meeting.

That amount is just a piece of the overall $14.9 million construction contract with Haselden, and the balance will come before the commissioners in future months in additional contracts. The county split the construction contract into pieces to it could apply for two grants from the Department of Local Affairs, available in different time frames..

"We already have a $1 million grant, and we're going back in August (to try) for another $1 million grant," explained Ken Cooper, county facilities director.

The cost of the overall project is expected to be $19.5 million with nearly $15 million for construction of the two-story building on 8.9 acres of county land in Loveland. Construction is scheduled to begin next week, and this week, officials will celebrate the project with a groundbreaking on site at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

The new building, which will have 229 parking spaces, will replace the current county office building at 6th Street and Cleveland Avenue, which officials have said is overcrowded and outdated.

The city of Loveland is considering buying the old county building and parking lot once county employees have moved into the new facility.

The new building will house the clerk and recorder, health and environment, human services, Workforce Center and a Loveland station of the Larimer County Sheriff's Office. The new, larger office space is designed to meet the needs of the growing southern portion of the county.

Construction is expected to be complete in late summer or early fall of 2018, and the actual work is set to begin on July 5, the day after the Independence Day holiday.

"Don't eat too many hot dogs on the Fourth," Donnelly, a Loveland resident, joked to the contractor on Tuesday. "We want you to be out there on the Fifth."

Pamela Johnson: 970-699-5405, johnsonp@reporter-herald.com, http://www.twitter.com/RHPamelaJ.

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Construction to begin July 5 on Larimer County office in Loveland - Loveland Reporter-Herald

Over the course of its 125 years, the 121,059-square-foot Renaissance Revival-style property at 287 Park Avenue South was occupied and owned by the nonprofit United Charities (which oversees the Childrens Aid Society and Community Service Society of New York).

The organization certainly didnt sell it for charity, though, when it collected $128 million from China-based CL Investment Group in August 2014.

CL Investment is positioning it for the next 100 years, Brooks Kendall Slocum, a studio manager at SGA, which is designing the renovation, told CO during a tour of the building. It basically remained a charitys building for its entire life. But you have to be ready for what modern offices need. Weve kind of had to treat it as a new building with an old soul.

Demolition for a gut renovation of the nine-story building has begun, and CM & Associates Construction Management workers have stripped columns to reveal cast iron beams and knocked down dividing walls to maximize space.

On the exterior, the limestone and terra-cotta faade of the building will be restored; on the interior, building systems upgraded, ground-floor spaces renovated for retail and office spaces modernized on floors above. CL Investment hopes to complete the project in the summer of 2018. (The developer did not reveal the cost of the project.)

On the ground floor, off the East 22nd Street side of the property, exists a space with 28-foot ceiling heights, historic architecture and stained glass and a skylight. It was once an event space called Assembly Hall, and owners plan to keep the design intact and repair the room. Cushman & Wakefield is marketing that 6,523-square-foot space to restaurateurs and high-end retailers.

The building also features a 2,028-square-foot retail space on Park Avenue South (JLL is marketing that one), and mechanicals in the buildings cellar are being moved to a mezzanine space to allow for additional retail uses in the 7,552 square feet below grade.

SGA has designed a new, efficient core of staircases and elevators to expand the size of each floor plate to roughly 13,000 square feet. SGA will also revitalize the winding cast iron staircase that passes through the center of the building. (Parts of that staircase can be removed if the office spaces are rented to a mix of tenants.)

The offices, which will be marketed by Newmark Knight Frank, throughout the structure typically have 14-foot ceiling heights; SGA plans to replace the heaters and expose the terra-cotta brick walls and a skylight that runs 85-foot long, nearly the entire length of the floor plate that was covered up decades ago.

The real gem of the building is its top floor. Construction workers removed the dropped ceilings to uncover nearly 22-foot ceiling heights. It also has two mezzanine spaces on each wing of the floor with individual circular staircases.

CL Investment is also planning to remove a water tower from the roof to introduce something new to the building: a roof deck.

We want to make it a nice space that you see when you look up from the skylight, and having roof space in New York City, I think, is just a nice feature, said Derrick Metzler, a project manager at CL Investment. I think its just finding the full potential of the building.

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Under Construction: United Charities Building Undergoes Transformation - Commercial Observer