Earlier this month, Clark Construction, on behalf of the owner Carr Properties, filed applications to raze four buildings in Washington D.C., which include the headquarters of the Washington Post, which is moving to a new location.
That demolition—of two seven-story office buildings, one 10-story building, and a 12-story office building—isn’t scheduled to occur until next year at the earliest.
But Carr—which paid $157.4 million to acquire these properties in March 2014—has already signed Fannie Mae as an anchor tenant for a new development that the developer is planning for this site.
On Monday, Carr Properties filed its plans with the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustments for an 838,480-sf 12-story metal and glass office building. Fannie Mae will lease about 85% of the building’s space and intends to occupy the property in two phases starting in late 2017.
When it relocates, Fannie Mae would be consolidating the 1 million sf its current headquarters takes up. Fannie has announced plans to put that headquarters building, as well as two other buildings, up for sale.
Carr intends to link this building to the nearby Columbia Center—which earlier this month it purchased for $120 million—using a canopy structure that could be as large as 4,000 sf. Overall, the two buildings will consist of 1,252,600 sf. Urban Turf.com reports that the new building will be constructed to a height of 130 feet as measured from the elevation at the midpoint of the building along 15th Street to the top of the parapet.
The building will feature two wings, separated by a large open and landscaped courtyard. There will be a series of retail pavilions totaling 42,000 sf, and 579 parking spaces on three underground levels.
The architects listed for this project are WDG Architecture and SHoP Architects. The Washington Business Journal observes that this design is similar to the one SHoP designed for Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco.
But initial reaction to the design for D.C. building was decidedly mixed. Several readers commented on Urban Turf’s website that they thought the design was too boxy, and used words like “boring,” “cut-rate,” and “dull” to describe its look. Some readers also seemed peeved that Carr had hired out-of-town architects to design its building.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
New air-conditioning design standard allows for increased air speed to cool building interiors
Building occupants, who may soon feel cooler from increased air movement, can thank a committee of building science specialists. The committee in charge of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 55 - Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy—after months of study and discussion--has voted recently to allow increased air speed as an option for cooling building interiors. In lay terms, increased air speed is the equivalent of turning up the fan.
| Aug 11, 2010
Architecture Billings Index flat in May, according to AIA
After a slight decline in April, the Architecture Billings Index was up a tenth of a point to 42.9 in May. As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending. Any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings.
| Aug 11, 2010
Free-span solar energy system installed at REM Eyewear headquarters
The first cable-suspended free-span solar energy system was completed today over the REM Eyewear headquarters parking lot in Sun Valley, Calif. The patented, cable-supported photovoltaic system created by P4P Energy is expected to generate 40,877 kilowatt-hours of renewable electricity per year, enough to power five to six single family homes and to prevent 1.5 million pounds of carbon from being released into the atmosphere.
| Aug 11, 2010
Construction employment declined in 333 of 352 metro areas in June
Construction employment declined in all but 19 communities nationwide this June as compared to June-2008, according to a new analysis of metropolitan-area employment data released today by the Associated General Contractors of America. The analysis shows that few places in America have been spared the widespread downturn in construction employment over the past year.
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, Hensel Phelps among the nation's 50 largest design-build contractors
A ranking of the Top 50 Design-Build Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Arup, SOM top BD+C's ranking of the country's largest mixed-use design firms
A ranking of the Top 75 Mixed-Use Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
10% of world's skyscraper construction on hold
Emporis, the largest provider of global building data worldwide, reported that 8.7% of all skyscrapers listed as "under construction" in its database had been put on hold. Most of these projects have been halted in the second half of 2008. According to Emporis statistics, the United States had been hit the worst: at the beginning of 2008, "Met 3" in Miami was the only U.S. skyscraper listed as being "on hold". In the second half of the year, 19 projects followed suit.
| Aug 11, 2010
Structure Tone, Turner among the nation's busiest reconstruction contractors, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 75 Reconstruction Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
IFMA workplace study: Average space per employee up 40 sf since 2007, likely due to corporate layoffs
The International Facility Management Association has released “Operations and Maintenance Benchmarks, Research Report #32,” a study outlining the facility trends affecting workplaces throughout North America. Among the new report’s findings are that the average space per person has risen nearly 40 square feet since 2007, likely due to recent corporate layoffs.
