Industry News

NeuStar, the supplier of area codes and blocks of numbers to telephone companies and Internet service providers, has opened its new headquarters office in downtown Washington. Ganek Baer Architects of Littleton, Mass., designed the facility to promote creative collaboration for the egalitarian corporate culture of NeuStar’s 150 employees. Offices are small and hexagonal, and surround open areas containing coffee islands. Small “backyard” alcoves which contain a round table a few chairs accommodate ad hoc consultations.

 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will occupy all but the top two floors of a nine-story building being developed by Lowe Enterprises Mid-Atlantic. The interior design will be handled by Hickok Warner Fox.   The FTC expects to occupy 200,000 sf of the 260,000-sf, $65-million structure in July 2002.

The Pentagon anticipates proceeding with its renovation. The announcement of a $620 million contract award to the developer/architectural team of  Colorado-based Hensel Phelps is expected. The 12 to 14 year project would include the reconstruction of 4 million sf in four wedges of the five-story building, each wedge housing approximately 5,000 employees. In addition to Hensel Phelps Construction, the project team includes Shalom Baranes Associates, HDR Architecture, MC Dean, Studio Architecture, and Southland Industries.

Siemens Medical Systems, based in Iselin, N.J., is expanding at its 20,000-sf service and training center in Cary. The addition of a four-story training center and a two-story parking deck will bring the total space to 65,600 sf. Completion of construction is anticipated by the end of 2001. The company is a subsidiary of Siemens AG, the electronics company based in Germany.

The Department of the Interior’s 1.3 million-sf 1930s-era building is scheduled for  modernization. The General Services Administration has awarded Grunley Construction of Rockville, Md., a $18.6 million construction contract for phase one of the project—HVAC central plant work on several levels, some demolition and new construction in part of the building’s northernmost wing. The building currently accommodates approximately 2,500 employees. Completion of the entire project is anticipated in late 2008.