1000 Connecticut Avenue Ahead of Construction Schedule

What will surely be the cornerstone property of the Golden Triangle in downtown DC, the trophy building at 1000 Connecticut is under construction and may deliver ahead of early estimates. Initial construction work on the site (see current image) began last summer, but site preparation wound down without foundation work until early this year. But Clark Construction has now poured the foundation and, according to Project Manager Michael Tyler of MJ Tyler and Associates, the building exterior should now finish up by February of 2012, with interior tenant build-outs picking up from there. Law firm Arent Fox is the only tenant but will not occupy the building until early 2013 when its current lease expires. Arent Fox signed up in May 2008 to occupy 70 percent of the space with 8 floors and over 238,000 s.f. of office space.

The site is an aggregation of several buildings that were demolished in 2007. The 12-story building, roughly the same height as what it replaces, was designed by the late Jim Freed of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, who also designed the neighboring building at 1700 K St NW. Washington DC based WDG Architecture worked with Pei Cobb Freed on the interior to design a building that is targeted to earn a LEED Gold certification.

Tyler estimated that the total hard construction costs will come in around $70 million, with total project costs around $180 million. In a statement, designers refer to the site as the "boundary" to Farragut Park and K Street and the "gateway" to Connecticut Avenue, NW. According the to architects, the "building’s two principal façades respond individually to their settings while at the same time complementing each other in a variety of ways, convening to turn the corner in a distinctive and unexpected fashion." The materials for the Connecticut Avenue street front create a "skin [that] is folded into reflective pleats of glass and stainless steel." The K Street frontage is "composed primarily of granite and glass as foil to the stainless and glass façade of 1700 K Street opposite."

Though demolition began in 2007 and construction was initially to begin in 2008, the property sat empty for several years, leaving some chafing at the vacancy of the highly visible site. Cushman & Wakefield, the leasing broker, did not return phone calls and does not list the property on its website.

Washington, DC real estate development news