Industry News

The Army will occupy 525,000 sf in Equity Office Properties Trust’s Taylor Building in Crystal City. The facility will enable the Army to consolidate 12 Northern Virginia offices in Pentagon City, Crystal City, Roslyn and the Pentagon.

The University of California at Santa Cruz is building the $61-million Engineering Building 2, a 90,000-sf research and teaching facility. The facility will house studies in bioinformatics, nanotechnology, biotechnology, engineering, statistics, and biomolecular engineerining. Slated for completion in fall 2004, a year earlier than anticipated, the building will include an auditorium and 20,000 sf of space for two of Gov. Gray Davis’ California Institutes for Science and Innovation.

The Smithsonian Institution has awarded Hensel Phelps Construction of Greeley, Colo., the $22-million contract for the first phase of the Patent Office Building renovation project. Construction on the Patent Office Building, which houses the American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, began in May 2003. The project includes demolition and installation of underground utilities.

SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae or Student Loan Marketing Association, broke ground on its new nine-story headquarters in Reston on April 29, 2003. The 240,000-sf facility was designed by Boggs & Partners and WDG Architects. The $40-million facility is slated for occupancy in July 2004. The highlight of the building is the “tower of learning”, a lighted glass staircase extending to all nine floors of the structure.

West Virginia University has recently completed the Life Sciences Building (LSB), a consolidated facility housing the biology and psychology departments. At 200,000-sf, the LSB is the largest structure on the school's Morgantown campus and is the first facility in the long-range master plan developing the site of the university’s former football stadium and defining a new campus edge.