Government

ARAMARK today announced that it has completed the acquisition of ServiceMaster Management Services, the facility services business of ServiceMaster.

The Internal Revenue Service will have a new 45,504-sf office at SouthTech Business Center, a recently completed 260,000-sf complex in Austin. The building will house offices featuring raised flooring. Parking for 192 vehicles is also included. Move-in is scheduled for the first quarter of 2003. The General Services Administration found the space for the IRS. Hill Partners Inc. is the developer of the complex.

The Office of Homeland Security may move into a 339,000-sf, eight-story stand-alone building with secure parking—the largest block of contiguous office space available in Washington. The General Services Administration is bidding for the space against CareFirst BlueCross Blue Shield, which is also looking to house its 1,275 employees in the city.

The Organization of American States plans to renovate its General Secretariat building in Washington, where operations will be consolidated onto six floors and a lower level; three remaining floors will be leased. OAS selected the architectural firm Group Goetz and the engineering firm Joseph Loring Inc. to work on the project.

The Food and Drug Administration’s new 350,000-sf Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition opened in October. The $62.5-million life sciences and chemistry lab facility consolidates three offices from the D.C. area, and accommodates approximately 950 employees. Planning and construction of the building took four years. The general contractor for the project is Tomkins.

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms’ scheduled ribbon-cutting ceremony was postponed by the General Services Administration pursuant to the terrorist attacks. The $104-million building is being designed by architect Moshe Safdie to accommodate approximately 1,100 employees in 295,000 sf. Parking spots for 200 are also included in the project.

HarleyEllis, in conjunction with HERA, Inc. of Saint Louis, Mo., is assessing the viability of a building expansion and renovation for Westchester County's Department of Laboratories and Research in Valhalla, New York. The $9.1 million project will enhance laboratory capabilities and technology. 

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s plans for a new five-building campus in Alexandria’s Carlyle development have been approved, and construction is slated to begin by year’s end. The 2.3 million-sf project will be developed by LCOR, with Turner Construction as the general contractor. The complex will accommodate 7,100 employees. Completion is expected early in 2005.

Design and construction of the Southeastern Archives Center, a joint federal and Georgia State Archives research complex with online access, is pending funding approval by the Senate. The $30.5 million project would be located in the Gateway Village Complex in Morrow next to Clayton College and State University. $14 million was previously approved for the facility The existing federal archives at Eagle Point will be relocated to the new center upon completion.

The Democratic National Committee is purchasing four blocks southwest of the U.S. Capitol as the site of its new 90,000-sf headquarters. The DNC has outgrown its current facilities four blocks to the east where 500 employees are spread in three buildings. Featuring a TV and radio broadcast studio, the project will be built by Trammel Crow and is slated for groundbreaking in spring of 2002, with occupancy scheduled for February of 2004.

The United States Institute of Peace will convert a parking lot near the Vietnam and Korean war memorials into a 75,000- to 100,000-sf facility to promote the use of peaceful means in the prevention, management, and resolution of international conflicts. The $31-million to $35-million structure will house approximately 60 employees. It will accommodate both conference and research space as well as an exhibit area, and will provide 340 underground parking spaces, to be shared with the nearby Navy medical facility.

Westchester County Department of Laboratories and Research is considering a $9.1-million building expansion and renovation to enhance its lab capabilities and technology in Valhalla. HarleyEllis, in conjunction with HERA of St. Louis, will outline the renovation of an existing 14,000-sf facility, as well as the proposed construction of a new 12,000-sf structure.

A new 32,000-sf veterinary care facility costing between $5 million and $10 million will be built at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. The building will house office, institutional and veterinary care, and animal handling and treatment spaces.    

The Cusano Environmental Education Center has just been completed at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge. The 18,000-sf 'green' structure was designed by the Philadelphia architectural firm Susan Maxman & Partners.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in partnership with the General Services Administration (GSA) broke ground in March 2001 at the former Naval Surface Warfare Center on Phase 1a of the four-story, 114,000-gsf Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Washington-based C&R Construction is performing the excavation work. The GSA has not yet awarded the Phase 1b construction contract, but completion of the facility is anticipated in fall 2002.