In Aurora, Colo., The Children’s Hospital has commenced construction of a new 350,000-square-foot tower at its facility less than ten miles west of Denver. The $230 million expansion project will address a demand that has been on the rise since 2007 when the hospital opened its new location at the 227-acre Anschutz Medical Campus, a recently developed education, research and patient care complex.

According to officials, Children’s Hospital has experienced an annual increase in inpatient admissions of 10 percent or more over the last three years. “When we first moved to the Anschutz Medical Campus in September 2007, we wondered if our patients would follow us,” Jim Shmerling, President and CEO of The Children’s Hospital Colorado, told CPE. “The response has been a resounding, ‘yes!’ Here we are three years later, about to build another ten floors, about five years ahead of schedule.”

Phipps/McCarthy is handling construction of the East Tower, which will ultimately accommodate the addition of 500 patient beds. The new 10-story building, designed by ZGF Architects and H+L Architecture, will meet standards for LEED certification.

Children’s Hospital is hardly alone in its quest to provide additional space to address demand–demand that is only going to increase with the 32 million uninsured Americans that will become insured in a few years as a result of healthcare reform. Turner Construction Company broke ground this week on a $161 million, 216,000-square-foot patient tower at the Inova Fairfax Hospital campus in Falls Church, Va. In June, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs kicked off development of a 1.5 million-square-foot replacement medical center in New Orleans, and in May, work commenced on the $750 million, 1.2 million-square-foot Wishard Memorial Hospital replacement hospital in Indianapolis, Ind.

The new tower at Children’s Hospital in Aurora will open in late 2012, bringing the hospital’s total footprint at the Anschutz campus to nearly 1.8 million square feet.

The Christian Science Board of Directors at The First Church of Christ, Scientist, has revealed a draft of a revitalization plan for the Christian Science Plaza in Boston, home to the church’s global headquarters. The proposal includes plans for the development of 950,000 square feet of residential and commercial facilities.

Surrounded by Boston’s Back Bay, Prudential, South End and Fenway neighborhoods, the Plaza encompasses 14.5 acres and offers 10 acres of open space that is accessible to the public. Among the property’s seven existing buildings are two centerpiece structures, the iconic Original Mother Church, built in 1894 and the Extension church, which was developed in 1906. As per the proposal, all existing buildings will remain intact.

The goal of the revitalization endeavor is threefold. One facet of involves the enhancement of the site’s open space by reopening the historical pathway leading to the Original Mother Church with the creation of a pedestrian crossing through–not over–the reflecting pool. Another goal of the plan is to increase the property’s environmental sustainability through a variety of means, including the planting of additional trees to and grass to reduce the urban heat effect.

Real estate development, however, is the key part of the revitalization plan. The church will make better use of the property’s underutilized space with the construction of new buildings totaling as much approximately 950,000 square feet. A site near the intersection of Belvidere and Dalton streets and another site off Huntington Avenue have been identified for development.

Two buildings are expected to sprout from the Belvidere/Dalton Site, creating residential units, a hotel, ground-level retail space and, if the market demands, office space. Currently, Boston has no shortage of office space. According to a report by real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis Co., the average office vacancy rate in the Boston area reached 14.4 percent in the second quarter. At the Huntington Site, the Church will erect a single, 150,000-square-foot residential building that will include affordable housing, which, unlike office space, is always in demand.

The organization has outlined the many public benefits of the new development projects, including additional affordable housing, greater street-level activity with the addition of new retail offerings, increased tax revenue and the creation of temporary construction jobs and permanent positions.

“The Church is proud to be part of Boston’s progressive vision and noble history,” Mary Trammell, Chair of the Board of Directors, noted in a prepared statement, “and to continue a tradition of contributing to this City’s beauty, inspiration, and progress.”

Plans for the development of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s new National Security Campus in Kansas City, Mo., have taken a big step forward. Now that Baltimore, Md.-headquartered CGA Capital Corporation has closed a $687 million lease-backed financing deal on behalf of Oakbrook, Ill.-based developer CenterPoint Zimmer L.L.C., construction can get underway on the 1.5 million-square-foot built-to-suit manufacturing and research facility. All told, the entire complex will cost the U.S. General Services Administration, the federal government’s real estate division, nearly $4.8 billion in completion and long-term occupancy costs.

NNSA’s new home will replace the agency’s current digs at the Cold War-era Bannister Federal Complex. “The complex is out of date,” Charlie Cook, GSA Regional Public Affairs spokesperson, told CPE. “It was built in 1942 as an aircraft facility and NNSA has been spending a lot of money to maintain and operate it. NNSA did studies and found that if they moved to a new facility, they could save over $100 million with the reduction in operating costs.”

The agency’s new campus will sit in a farm field owned by the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority of Kansas City and located at the intersection of Missouri Highway 150 and Botts Road. Five state-of-the-art structures will house office, laboratory, manufacturing and warehouse space. The facility will be approximately half the size of NNSA’s 3.2 million-square-foot accommodations at the 5.2 million-square-foot Bannister Complex, but it will be perfectly tailored to the agency’s needs. “The new space is much smaller but NNSA doesn’t need the amount of space it has now because the new facility will be much more flexible, it will have a much more efficient design,” Cook said. “And it will be more sustainable.”

The Kansas City office of HNTB Architects is behind the design of the complex, which will meet qualifications for LEED Gold certification. Development of NNSA’s new locale is one of the largest public-private projects in GSA’s history, and is currently one of the largest commercial real estate developments under construction in the U.S.

Final approval to secure a developer and go forward with the build-to-suit project came from Congress in 2008, just in time for the freezing of the credit market. “We did experience a big bust where we had to cancel the project, but NNSA advised us to try it one more time and in March, we selected CenterPoint Zimmer,” Cook said. “Then there was another year of negotiations and establishing their ability to get financing for the project.” And, with CGA’s closing of financing, GSA’s assessment of CenterPoint’s ability to get the necessary funds was right on target.

CGA took on a multifaceted role in the orchestration of financing for CenterPoint’s NNSA build-to-suit development. The net lease financing firm acted as exclusive financial adviser and structuring agent for the public-private endeavor, as well as sole arranger of the private placement of bonds through a venture with a privately held securities firm. CGA was able to complete financing for the project upon the finalization of the 20-year lease agreement between CenterPoint and GSA. As per the agreement, GSA will pay CenterPoint approximately $61.6 million a year, or an aggregate $1.2 billion over the life of the lease, for NNSA’s occupancy in the facility.

CenterPoint expects to break ground on the NNSA complex in August to accommodate the first phase of the agency’s relocation of 2,500 employees in 2012. NNSA is scheduled to complete the move to the new site in 2014.

Trammell Crow has been selected as master developer for the 146,971-square-foot Medical Arts Pavilion on Princeton HealthCare System’s new 171-acre, $442 million campus, known as the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro.

The project will break ground in October and is slated for completion in May 2012. It will be physically connected to the new hospital structure and is owned by Partners Health Trust, Inc., a joint venture of Trammell and a public pension fund advised by Kennedy Associates.

Designed as a replacement hospital for the existing University Medical Center at Princeton, the new new University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro is currently being built. The five-story Medical Arts pavilion will provide four entrances into the hospital: the main north entry, emergency department and operating suites.

“We are pleased to be working closely with Princeton HealthCare System on a key component of its new state-of-the-art campus that will provide comprehensive healthcare services to the residents of the area,” Trammell Crow senior managing director Jeffrey Goggins said when announcing the news. “Our goal is to provide the hospital and physicians with high-quality space in which to provide outpatient care to patients.”

Trammell Crow was founded in 1948 and has developed or acquired more than 500 million square feet of buildings with a value exceeding $50 billion.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is still reeling from the devastation wrought by the disaster, but a massive federal project aims to make a major contribution to the recovery. On Friday the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs broke ground on a 1.5 million-square-foot replacement medical center. Bearing in mind Katrina’s harsh lessons, the project team is designing the state-of-the-art facility to keep functioning during natural disasters. Development of the medical center, which will create 2,000 new construction jobs, is scheduled for completion in 2013.

Situated on 34 acres between Tulane Ave. and Canal Street, the new hospital will encompass 120 inpatient beds and 60 transitional care beds for hospice and palliative care and mental illness research; an outpatient clinic; a diagnostic and treatment facility; research laboratories; and administrative space. VA officials expect the hospital to receive 500,000 outpatient visits annually. “This facility will become a cornerstone in New Orleans’ medical research community, which will ensure the best care is available for our Louisiana veterans,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric  Shinseki said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Preparedness and preservation are priorities of the project’s design, which is being overseen by a team of New Orleans-based Eskew+Dumez+Ripple and Rozas-Ward Architects and Columbus, Ohio-based NBBJ. Few medical facilities in the area were fully prepared to withstand Katrina, so the new hospital will be equipped to provide critical services 20 feet above ground level. To speed emergency transportation and evacuation, the property will feature a heliport and boat dock.

On the preservation front, the project will also preserve some notable existing structures. For example, the Pan-American Life Insurance Co. building will be incorporated into the design.

CHICAGO – Commercial real estate has been notably ahead of residential when it comes to green practices—with office buildings leading the way. The most successful examples frequently involve owner occupants and multi-generational real estate families that have a long-term view.

All too often green building is impeded by finger-pointing and adversarial relationships between building owners and their tenants. Progress can be delayed indefinitely while disagreements about who’s responsible for implementing the green agenda are sorted out. Other barriers to green building include shortage of capital, legal and regulatory restrictions on borrowing to improve a building, and short-term focus vs lifecycle.

During NeoCon World’s Trade Fair 2010, Susan Aiello, CID, LEED AP, provided facilities executives and commercial space planners with useful suggestions in a seminar titled “Addressing Barriers to Sustainable Design.” Increased operation costs equal decreased property value, noted Aiello. “By the next three years buildings that don’t have a green strategy in place will be at a disadvantage with higher operating costs.”

Since skeptics are likely to point out that data can be manipulated, avoid research from the green community when stating your case for green construction, build-outs or tenant leases. Instead, said Aiello, obtain buy-in by presenting studies from sources they can relate to such as CoStar or “The Dollars and Sense of Green Retrofits,” a report co-authored by Deloitte with green real estate authority and consultant Charles Lockwood.

Findings from Deloitte’s survey of organizations that have undergone at least one LEED-certified green building retrofit include: While savings from energy efficiency was a top goal, as cited by 75 percent of respondents, corporate environmental commitment was the leading motive. Seventy-three percent of respondents reported an actual cost savings resulting from the retrofit. Ninety-three percent of respondents reported a greater ability to attract talent. Eighty-one percent of respondents saw greater employee retention. Eighty-seven percent of respondents experienced an improvement in workforce productivity. Seventy-five percent of respondents reported improvement in employee health. One hundred percent of respondents experienced an increase in goodwill/brand equity.

Case studies can also be persuasive. Multinational construction and development company Skanska is a sustainable powerhouse. Its Empire State Building office was built out to the LEED CI Platinum standard with features like daylight harvesting. The project reportedly cost 4.5 percent more than a standard Class A construction. According to Aiello, an Energy Star building can fetch a higher rental rate; also, occupancy rates are less likely to go down in a LEED building even during an economic downturn.

“Interface was the first carpet company that said ‘We will not be polluters any more, and we will get away from our dependence on fossil fuel,” said Aiello. “Ray Anderson is a recognized industry leader—and a sharp businessman. The cost of [carpet] construction plummets if you’re not using new fossil fuels. The industry listened when Ray Anderson said Interface was going green, and they said ‘We’d better’ [do the same].”

Don’t be deterred from green building objectives, added Aiello. “CEOs and investment bankers will listen to these people.”

There’s also an increase in green legislation on the federal, state and city levels. “High-level executives are held accountable,” she said. “Increased requirements equal decreased incentives,” added Aiello, so the time to green commercial buildings is now while there are still incentives. DSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility and federal incentives and policies that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. Established in 1995 and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, DSIRE is an ongoing project of the N.C. Solar Center and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.

Diana Mosher is editor-in-chief of Multi-Housing News and can be reached at dmosher@multi-housingnews.com.

Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons user stephen.moore

With the real estate market still in the dumps, the federal government is among the few that can still afford to move forward with big-ticket projects like the $500 million, seven-year design-build contract the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Facilities Design and Construction Center Atlantic just awarded to Cambridge, Mass.-based construction and engineering firm CDM.

CDM will have its hands full over the next several years. The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract calls for the firm to supply design-build services for a variety of development endeavors to both USCG and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Locations of the projects, which will range in cost from $3 million to $100 million for total maximum of $500 million, will span the country, as well as U.S. territories. CDM will also be responsible for the contract’s separately awarded seed project, which involves the design and construction of a 25,000-square-foot, two-story structure and a 6,800-square-foot support facility in Cape May, N.J. Both facilities, to be developed at a cost of $10 million, will be designed to qualify for LEED certification.

The federal government has been expanding, and with most required funds for projects allotted well in advance on the commencement of development activity, its projects haven’t experienced major hiccups like those of so many private developers. Recent project announcements include the General Services Administration’s tapping of New York City-based Turner Construction Co. to serve as general contractor for the $73 million transformation of a vacant 547,000-square-foot federal building in Washington, D.C., into a premier office property; the conversion is being financed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. And in mid-May in North Bethesda, Md., just outside of Washington, D.C., joint venture partners Berwyn, Pa.-based LCOR and San Antonio, Tex.-based USAA Real Estate Co. broke ground on a $131 million, 362,000-square-foot office build-to-suit that will house approximately 1,500 employees of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Scott Yahraus

Seeing is believing. That’s why Scott Yahraus created ConstructionPhotoDocs, an online system that documents each step of the building process.

“The bane of the industry is change orders,” he told CPE. “We help with that.”

ConstructionPhotoDocs serves as a documentation clearinghouse for projects, including photos of every floor, wall and ceiling as well as all site and floor plans. Yahrus says this affords those involved in the process a real-time virtual view that can save money down the line. That’s because the photos substantiate claims by each contractor along with displaying any potential flaws in the building process.

“You have the photos that tell the story,” Yahraus said. “It conveys transparency for the new owner. It’s like a truthfulness.”

When clients access the program, they can view floorplans and photos from just about every angle, along with any requests for information, change orders, bulletins and miscellaneous related documents. While such documentation is already common within the industry, Yahraus says that it is extremely helpful to have it all in the same place.

“Developers take pictures already. We know that,” he said. “The problem is, who has what photo and where do you store it?”

The company typically takes onsite pictures three to four times per month in order to document progressions and milestones. The purpose of consistent photographing is to catch errors in process and avoid change orders. “When it’s covered up,” Yahraus said, “it’s covered up.”

Since ConstructionPhotoDocs is online, Yahraus says, team members on the go can check on a project anywhere at any time in the process.

“For a road warrior, this makes a lot of sense,” he said. “They can just log on even if they’re at the airport or wherever.”

Yahraus says that the company currently has five projects under contract and is on a strong growth curve. “This business has a high pent-up demand,” he said.

Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons user James Cridland

National Public Radio takes a big leap forward with development of its new 330,000-square-foot Washington, D.C., headquarters building now that the global broadcast and digital media organization has selected Dallas-based Balfour Beatty Construction to handle preconstruction services and construction management responsibilities for the project.

The new NPR headquarters will be located at 1111 North Capitol St., N.E., in the city’s burgeoning NoMa neighborhood, on a site that was home to a 165,000-square-foot warehouse when the company acquired the property in 2008. Balfour Beatty will be responsible for transforming the 1920s-era warehouse into a Class A office facility through a selective demolition and restoration process that will also involve the addition of a new structure containing seven levels of office and studio space, and three levels of parking accommodations. Ultimately, the headquarters will include a 100,000-square-foot newsroom, a 10,000-square-foot data center, a theater and production venue, as well as meeting and training rooms and a fitness center. Designed by Hickok Cole Architects, the project is being developed to adhere to LEED Gold certification standards.

Construction should get underway this fall, allowing for the employment of hundreds of workers. Serving as development manager is Boston Properties, which purchased NPR’s current headquarters at 635 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. for approximately $119.5 million in a sale-leaseback deal as part of its development contract bid with NPR. For Balfour Beatty and Boston Properties, the project marks a continuation of a longstanding partnership, as Balfour Beatty has erected over 3.8 million square feet for Boston Properties over the last 12 years.

Balfour Beatty is on schedule to complete construction of NPR’s home in 2012, paving the way for the media organization to set up shop in its new digs in 2013.

A longtime leader in the U.S. construction industry, Balfour Beatty has continued to win its share of the downsized pool of commercial real estate projects that possessed the financing to move forward during the debilitating credit crunch and economic downturn.

But the troubled times are not quite over yet. “Most developers are waiting for the economy to improve before they seek services for new projects,” John Tarpey, CEO of Balfour Beatty’s North Region, told CPE. “Our industry tends to lag a few years behind overall economic trends, and, typically, we won’t see industry activity increase until two to three years after the economy starts to recover.”

Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons user cliff66tm

Skanska USA has been awarded its first road assignment in the northwestern United States. The Swedish development and construction firm will build the $115 million Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle, a 0.8-mile stretch on the southern section of the Alaskan Way on the State Route 99 bypass in downtown Seattle.

The project, which will be jointly conducted by Skanska USA Building and Skanska USA Civil, is on behalf of the Washington State Department of Transportation. Work is slated to begin in summer and finish by 2013.

“It is our strategic intention to also become established within infrastructure construction and civil engineering in this expansive region, where we have a long tradition of building construction,” Skanska executive vice president Mike McNally said when announcing the news.

Skanska is no stranger to the Pacific Northwest. In 2008, it was awarded the construction management contract for an addition to the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, a $114 million project which entailed building a new 247,570-square-foot facility.

Skanska USA is headquartered in New York City and has approximately 7,000 employees. Its 2009 revenues were approximately $5.7 billion.