The buzzword in real estate circles these days is asset repositioning—taking a down-on-its-luck property, usually an older office building, and revaluing it through reconstruction.
TOP 130 RECONSTRUCTION ARCHITECTURE FIRMS
Rank, Firm, 2015 Revenue
1. Beck Group, The $316,027,821
2. Stantec $231,765,480
3. IMC Construction $225,000,000
4. HOK $112,706,000
5. HDR $110,180,000
6. CannonDesign $102,600,000
7. Perkins+Will $101,690,400
8. HGA $85,650,000
9. HKS $72,760,766
10. DLR Group $63,000,000
TOP 110 RECONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION FIRMS
Rank, Firm, 2015 Revenue
1. Gilbane Building Co. $2,127,487,000
2. Turner Construction Co. $1,931,117,760
3. Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., The $1,404,237,262
4. PCL Construction Enterprises $1,303,288,338
5. Balfour Beatty US $1,214,992,385
6. Pepper Construction Group $832,830,000
7. JE Dunn Construction $804,928,900
8. Consigli Building Group $777,521,827
9. DPR Construction $759,149,850
10. Shawmut Design and Construction $704,000,000
TOP 70 RECONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING FIRMS
Rank, Firm, 2015 Revenue
1. Jacobs $416,783,478
2. Robins & Morton $339,995,669
3. Boldt Company, The $195,086,494
4. Burns & McDonnell $176,706,584
5. IPS $141,876,000
6. WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff $136,804,000
7. Jensen Hughes $104,807,939
8. Benham Design $102,458,168
9. Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates $71,632,800
10. Dewberry $60,223,172
More often today, such projects sprinkle in fresh mixed-use ingredients—apartments, condos, retail outlets, restaurants, even entertainment venues.
“It all comes down to amenities and the quality of the space,” says John Clegg, AIA, LEED AP, Principal of Design in Page’s Houston office.
Reconstruction, says Clegg, is always a balancing act between the client’s pro forma and what the building needs to be vibrant again. Page’s work at 1100 Louisiana in Houston is an example of a low-cost solution that involved refreshing the lobby with new furniture, lighting, signage, and amenities—in this case, a Starbucks.
At 811 Louisiana, more drastic measures were called for. A major tenant had moved out, and the owner needed to attract a new lessee. Page proposed resetting the interiors of the first five floors and recladding the exterior to give the building greater curb appeal. The desired effect was to “change the identity of the building itself,” says Clegg.
One Main Place, in Dallas, is another example of a distinguished property that had fallen on hard times. One Main Place was designed in the 1950s by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Gordon Bunshaft, but it was only 30% leased after prime tenants like Bank of America and Ernst & Young had pulled up stakes.
ForrestPerkins, acting as architect of record and interior designer, led the conversion of the 10 upper floors of the 32-story structure into the Westin Dallas Downtown—326 guest rooms, two restaurants, a top-floor swimming pool, ballroom, and guest suite.
The second floor, with 25-foot-high ceilings, was converted into a public space. A porte cochère was added for the hotel. Separate entrances were provided for the ground-floor restaurant (NOLA Brasserie) and the offices. A 5,000-sf glass-enclosed Willow Pavilion was nestled within an existing 20,000-sf exterior sunken plaza.
“The thinking is that the hotel will raise the office space to a higher classification,” says Lawrence Adams, AIA, ForrestPerkins’s Principal in Charge.
Overcoming obstacles
In its renovation of the 109-year-old, 50,000-sf Van Antwerp building, the first reinforced concrete structure to be built in Mobile, Ala., the Building Team—Goodwyn | Mills | Cawood (architect), Thompson Engineering, and Doster Construction (GC)—preserved as much of the original structure as it could. They restored the terra cotta skin. They scanned pieces of the original exterior cornice to create a fiberglass replacement. The underside of the cornice now features mounted glass panels with LED lighting.
The $24 million project had to deal with a foundation that was only 25 feet wide. The foundation had to be reinforced to allow an 11-story addition to be built on the existing 11-story property, says GMC’s Tracy Bassett.
Last year, Leo A Daly completed the conversion of a former mental hospital on the Veterans Administration’s campus in West Los Angeles, which had been abandoned for decades, to permanent therapeutic residences for 65 former homeless veterans. “We envisioned each of the private apartments as rehabilitative cocoons carved into the fabric of a historic structure,” said Michael Walden, Leo A Daly’s Director of Design.
Nicos Katsellis, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, EDCA, GGP, Vice President and Director of Operations for Leo A Daly, says the 46,000-sf concrete building, which dates to the 1940s, was structurally sound. But the firm completely renovated the interior, which included moving the center corridor to the side to expose it to more daylight, and installing clerestories with translucent panels over the corridor.
Windows were restored with energy-efficient glazing. The construction of residences had to take into account columns and windows that weren’t always spaced uniformly. To free up overhead space in the rooms, the team ran vertical duct shafts from the HVAC system in the attic into numerous areas of the building.
RETURN TO THE GIANTS 300 LANDING PAGE
Related Stories
| Jan 9, 2015
Nonresidential construction hiring surges in December 2014
The U.S. construction industry added 48,000 jobs in December, including 22,800 jobs in nonresidential construction, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate released Jan. 9.
| Jan 9, 2015
10 surprising lessons Perkins+Will has learned about workplace projects
P+W's Janice Barnes shares some of most unexpected lessons from her firm's work on office design projects, including the importance of post-occupancy evaluations and having a cohesive transition strategy for workers.
| Jan 9, 2015
Technology and media tenants, not financial companies, fill up One World Trade Center
The financial sector has almost no presence in the new tower, with creative and media companies, such as magazine publisher Conde Nast, dominating the vast majority of leased space.
| Jan 8, 2015
Microsoft shutters classic clipart gallery: Reaction from a graphic designer
Microsoft shut down its tried-and-true clipart gallery, ridding the world not only of a trope of graphic design, but a nostalgic piece of digital design history, writes HDR's Dylan Coonrad.
| Jan 8, 2015
The future of alternative work spaces: open-access markets, co-working, and in-between spaces
During the past five years, people have begun to actively seek out third places not just to get a day’s work done, but to develop businesses of a new kind and establish themselves as part of a real-time conversation of diverse entrepreneurs, writes Gensler's Shawn Gehle.
Smart Buildings | Jan 7, 2015
NIBS report: Small commercial buildings offer huge energy efficiency retrofit opportunities
The report identifies several barriers to investment in such retrofits, such as the costs and complexity associated with relatively small loan sizes, and issues many small-building owners have in understanding and trusting predicted retrofit outcomes.
| Jan 7, 2015
University of Chicago releases proposed sites for Obama library bid
There are two proposed sites for the plan, both owned by the Chicago Park District in Chicago’s South Side, near the university’s campus in Hyde Park, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
| Jan 7, 2015
4 audacious projects that could transform Houston
Converting the Astrodome to an urban farm and public park is one of the proposals on the table in Houston, according to news site Houston CultureMap.
| Jan 7, 2015
How you can help improve the way building information is shared
PDFs are the de facto format for digital construction documentation. Yet, there is no set standard for how to produce PDFs for a project, writes Skanska's Kyle Hughes.
Smart Buildings | Jan 7, 2015
Best practices for urban infill development: Embrace the region's character, master the pedestrian experience
If an urban building isn’t grounded in the local region’s character, it will end up feeling generic and out-of-place. To do urban infill the right way, it’s essential to slow down and pay proper attention to the context of an urban environment, writes GS&P's Joe Bucher.