Category: Featured

Ratings reflect Akridge’s commitment to operating bestin-class properties and providing unparalleled client service

(Washington, DC)— Akridge announced today it has earned the WELL Health-Safety Rating for 13 properties through the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI). Those properties are 2100 L Street, 601 Thirteenth Street, 900 Seventh Street, 1101 Sixteenth Street, 1025 Vermont Avenue, 1121 Fourteenth Street, 1200 Seventeenth Street, 2425 Wilson Boulevard, 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, 975 F Street, 1100 Seventeenth Street, 1199 North Fairfax Street, and 7550 Wisconsin Avenue. The WELL Health-Safety Rating is an evidence-based, third-party verified rating for all new and existing building and space types focusing on operational policies, maintenance protocols, stakeholder engagement and emergency plans to address a post-COVID-19 environment now and into the future.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating was designed to empower owners and operators across large and small businesses alike to take the necessary steps in order to prioritize the health and safety of their staff, visitors, and stakeholders. The WELL Health-Safety Rating can help guide users in preparing their spaces for re-entry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, instilling confidence in those who come through the building as well as the broader community.

“I am incredibly proud of the work Sonia Zamora, Caroline Gieseler, and our property management did to earn the Health-Safety Rating for 13 properties,” said Matt Klein, president of Akridge. “When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the property management team worked round the clock to ensure our buildings met the highest operating standards. This achievement is a testament to their continued dedication to prioritizing
Client health.”

In order to achieve WELL Health-Safety Rating, these projects implemented features such as enhanced cleaning and sanitization procedures, emergency preparedness programs, health service resources, air and water quality management, and stakeholder engagement and communication.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating provides a centralized source and governing body to validate efforts made by owners and operators. It leverages insight from the IWBI Task Force on COVID-19. It also applies guidance on the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory infections developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), global disease control and prevention centers, and emergency management agencies. It further leverages guidance from recognized standard-making associations, such as ASTM International and ASHRAE, and leading academic and research institutions. Its core principles were established by IWBI’s WELL Building Standard, the premier framework for advancing health in buildings and spaces of all kinds.

Award of Excellence
Best DC Urban Office: Over 150,000 SF

Project Team

Akridge – (Owner + Developer)
Corporate Office Properties Trust (COPT) – (Owner)
OTJ Architects – (Architect)
WDG Architecture – (Architect)
Davis – (General Contractor)
Akridge – (Broker + Project Management)
A. Zahner Company

Project Description

2100 L Street delivers a stunning, 190,000-square-foot building that elevates DC’s architecture to new heights and features signature amenities that truly differentiate it from other trophy office buildings. Its delivery marks the culmination of nearly two decades of collaboration between the ownership group, community stakeholders, and the District. Even more noteworthy, the project includes a multitude of community benefits carefully chosen to honor the legacy of U.S. Congressman and abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. The ownership team has already leased the major-ity of the project, a testament to their ability to deliver unparalleled design while also contributing to the local community.

2100 L Street is a modern, trophy office building with a striking architectural veil that spans the façade and rooftop. Designed by world-renowned artist Jan Hendrix, the veil’s intricate pattern was inspired by the leaf structure of the Willow Oak tree found throughout DC and on K Street. The A. Zahner Company fabricated the stainless steel veil, which reflects light and creates dynamic view lines both inside and outside the building. Several of the building’s signature amenities are named after the veil and the Willow Oak tree that inspired it. The building boasts a landscaped rooftop terrace, penthouse lounge, and adjacent catering kitchen all named the Willowtop, as well as a penthouse conference room named the Oakside. Combined, Willowtop and Oakside provide Clients an ideal location to meet, collaborate, and socialize in Client-only space maintained by a white-glove property management team. In addition, 2100 L Street has an art gallery and terrace, named the Drew Gallery after the promi-nent Stevens School alumna Charles E. Drew. The Drew Gallery will feature the artwork of local Black artists provides Clients another space to socialize and entertain guests. 2100 L Street also has a small park named Legacy Garden that honors the legacy of Thaddeus Stevens, as well as a state-of-the-art fitness center, a bicycle storage room with a maintenance station, and spa-quality locker rooms. The building also features floor-to-ceiling glass and a grand, two-story lobby with oxidized nickel panels. 2100 L Street’s highly desirable location also provides easy access to a number of neighborhood amenities and four bustling Metro lines.

The ownership group dedicated 22 years to-date to the purchase and development of 2100 L Street. The building sits on two parcels –the his-toric Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School land parcel and the former national headquarters of the Humane Society of the United States’ parcel (HSUS). Ownership first identified the opportunity to redevelop the location in 1998, starting discussions with the District of Columbia to rede-velop the property. In 2009, then-Mayor Adrian Fenty re-awarded the site to Equity Residential, Inc. to redevelop the lot into an apartment build-ing and restaurant. This upset neighbors, who fought that decision, and in 2011, Mayor Vincent Gray rebid the project. With wide support from the community, the city awarded the project to 2100 L Street’s ownership team the next year. Concurrent with finalizing the Stevens School deal, the ownership team purchased the HSUS headquarters located at the corner of 21st and L Streets. The combined sites not only allowed for the development of a corner office building, but also enabled the team to increase the size of the project by approximately 50,000 square feet.

An integral part of 2100 L Street is the benefits it provides the community. The ownership team worked closely with the District and community organizations to incorporate several design elements and outreach programs to benefit the community at large. 2100 L Street honors both the historic Stevens School, which was one of DC’s first public schools built for the education of African American children, and its namesake, Thad-deus Stevens, who was a U.S. Congressman and a strong abolitionist. The property will include a rotating art gallery of works from Black artists, an exterior art feature commemorating Thaddeus Stevens, and an augmented reality (“AR”) lobby exhibit celebrating the history of the Stevens School and many of its famous alumni. 2100 L Street has also provided various community benefits, including a college scholarship program for local DC students, which has already awarded scholarships to four impressive applicants. 2100 L Street also participates in a program working with local schools to expose students to real estate development and construction.

2100 L Street not only delivered a beautiful, architecturally striking building that provides multiple community benefits, but it also delivered ma-jority leased. The global law firm, Morrison & Foerster LLP, preleased 54 percent of the buildin and occupy floors 6-10. In addition, Updata Part-ners, a software venture capital group, has preleased approximately 5,100 square feet on the fifth floor. Because of its incredible design and the many community benefits it provides, 2100 L Street will impact DC for years to come.

The building is about 60% leased, with Morrison & Forester leasing floors six through 10, and software venture capital group Updata Partners signing on for a smaller block of 5,100 square feet on the fifth floor.

It almost seemed fitting the Covid-19 outbreak would prevent the development team from hosting a rooftop celebration marking the completion of 2100 L St. NW, or at least taking prospective tenants on in-person tours through the 10-story office building.

After all, developers Akridge, Corporate Office Properties Trust and Argos Group had overcome no shortage of obstacles, delays and setbacks along the long and twisty journey that culminated in June with a certificate of occupancy for the 190,000-square-foot building, anchored by global law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP. What was one more?

Far from taking a woe-is-me attitude, the team adapted, rolling out a marketing campaign featuring targeted emails, videos and virtual walk-throughs to show off the $170 million building’s sleek, two-story lobby with floor-to-ceiling glass and oxidized zinc panels. In some ways, the team says, the building is ideally positioned to attract new tenants in a post-Covid world with features like a dedicated outdoor air system serving as its HVAC base, LEED Platinum certification, and outdoor spaces such as a rooftop terrace and pocket park to take in fresh air.

“We’ve pretty much put this major investment into a new building, a major trophy building we were all very proud of, and then we ran into the pandemic and couldn’t really show it off the way we wanted to,” says David Toney, senior vice president of development for Akridge. “It’s great to see how it finally has come together and overcome a lot of the challenges.”

The path officially started in 2012, when then-Mayor Vincent Gray picked the team to tackle the redevelopment of the historic Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School site after the administration of his predecessor, Adrian Fenty, had canceled the project’s award to another group in the face of community pushback. It would take another five years of delays before Akridge, COPT and Argos were in position to break ground, setting the stage for its delivery in the midst of a pandemic — all at a time when the District’s office vacancy rate, at around 17.4%, is as high as it has been in more than a decade, per first-quarter stats from CBRE.

The building is about 60% leased, with Morrison & Forester leasing floors six through 10, and software venture capital group Updata Partners signing on for a smaller block of 5,100 square feet on the fifth floor. Now that more people are getting vaccinated and spring weather has arrived, tour velocity is starting to pick back up, says Ben Meisel, managing director of leasing for Akridge.

“We’ve seen it go from an extremely high volume of potential tenants looking at it, getting presentations, and then the screeching halt, and then the nuclear winter, when nothing was happening,” Meisel says. “It actually picked up in the fall and then, with the advent of a vaccine now, I know that the last three tours that we’ve done over there, the tenants that are touring, one or all of them are vaccinated.”

As with so much in commercial real estate, seeing is believing. The team hopes that in-person tours will help to highlight the building’s modern architecture, which features a brushed-and-polished stainless steel veil designed by Dutch artist Jan Hendrix, along with amenities like a penthouse conference center and art gallery on the ground floor. All of that is set against the backdrop of the historic Stevens School, built in 1868 as the District’s first publicly funded school for Black children. The team agreed to refurbish that building as part of its deal with the District.

[Original Article]

Although it was hard to find something to celebrate in 2020, ENR MidAtlantic’s Best Projects judges took comfort in the fact that great projects were still completed despite a year full of challenges. This year’s judges honored 32 projects from across the region.

While the winners of the main categories can be found in the list below, the Best Project safety and sustainability award winners, which are juried by a separate groups of safety and sustainability experts, will be announced soon in the ENR MidAtlantic free e-newsletter. The finalists for this year’s ENR MidAtlantic Project of the Year will also be announced soon in the e-newsletter.

To subscribe to the free newsletter click here.

The Judges’ selection for this year’s overall Project of the Year from the Best Project-level winners listed below will be announced in the October issue of ENR MidAtlantic and the ENR MidAtlantic Best Projects awards event on Oct. 28. For more information about the Regional Best Projects event, please visit https://www.enr.com/enr-best-projects-awards/baltimore

This year’s winning projects in the main categories—which are listed at the bottom of this post—will also be profiled in depth in the October print issue of ENR MidAtlantic.

Two panels of industry judges reviewed nearly 90 projects located throughout the region, including Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

The judges were divided into two groups and assigned a group of categories. Projects were evaluated on the ability of the project team to overcome challenges, contribution to the industry and community, safety and construction and design quality. Due to the large number of entries, we can only honor a fraction of the projects that are submitted each year, so if your project didn’t win this year, please be sure to submit next year!

Judges could select any combination of Best Project-level category winners and Award of Merit honorees.

This year’s 2021 ENR MidAtlantic Best Projects winners are:

Best Project-level winners

Airport/Transit

South NIT Stack Optimization Project

Submitted by Allan Myers

Cultural/Worship

National Museum of the United States Army

Submitted by Draper Aden Associates

Government/Public Building

Hopper Hall: Center for Cyber Security Studies

Submitted by Turner Construction Co.

Health Care

University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center

Submitted by Clark Construction Group LLC

Higher Education/Research

Calvin and Tina Tyler Hall Student Services Building

Submitted by Barton Malow Holdings LLC

Highway/Bridge

S.R. 0422 Section SRB – US 422 Schuylkill River Bridge

Submitted by JBC Associates Inc.

K-12 Education

Eliot-Hine Middle School

Submitted by Turner Construction Co.

Manufacturing

National Institutes of Health NCI Building T30 Cell Processing Modular Facility

Submitted by DPR Construction

Office/Retail/Mixed-Use

The Wilson and The Elm – 7272 Wisconsin Avenue

Submitted by the Clark Construction Group LLC

Renovation/Restoration

Cannon House Revitalization Phase 2

Submitted by Clark/Christman

Sports/Entertainment

Lubber Run Community Center

Submitted by MCN Build

Water/ Environment

Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant Headworks and Wet Weather Equalization Facilities Improvements

Submitted by Clark/Ulliman Schutte

Awards of Merit

Cultural/Worship

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Core Project, Philadelphia, Pa.

Submitted by LF Driscoll

Cultural/Worship

Southwest Neighborhood Library

Submitted by Turner Construction Co.

Government Public Building 

Wheaton Revitalization Project

Submitted by Clark Construction Group LLC

Health Care

Hampden Medical Center

Submitted by Barton Malow Alexander

Health Care

Meritus Health 2 South – Regional Infection Containment Wing

Submitted by Gilbane Building Co.

Higher Education/Research

Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC

Submitted Skanska USA Building Co.

Higher Education/Research

ODU Chemistry Building

Submitted by W.M. Jordan Co.

Highway/Bridge

I-270 at Watkins Mill Road Interchange

Submitted by Wagman Heavy Civil Inc.

Interior/Tenant Improvement

Biohaven Pharmaceuticals (Office Renovation)

Submitted by Svigals + Partners

Interior/Tenant Improvement

2020 T. Rowe Price IPD Projects

Turner Construction Co.

K-12 Education

Jefferson Middle School Academy

Submitted by MCN Build

Office/Retail/Mixed-Use

2100 L St

Submitted by DAVIS Construction

Office/Retail/Mixed-Use

APTA – American Physical Therapy Association Headquarters

Submitted by DAVIS Construction

Renovation/Restoration 

The Foundry

Submitted by Balfour Beatty

Renovation/Restoration 

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library Renovation

Submitted by Smoot | Gilbane a Joint Venture

Residential/Hospitality

Anthology of King of Prussia

Submitted by Wohlsen Construction Co.

Residential/Hospitality

The Glenmere at The Village of Rockville

Submitted by Howard Shockey & Sons Inc.

Small Project (Under $10 million)

Post-Rockfall Geohazard Mitigation West Virginia University

Submitted by GeoStabilization International

Small Project (Under $10 million)

Hillel International – Hillel at The George Washington University, Gewirz Center

Consigli Construction Co. Inc.

Water/Environment

Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant Biosolids Addition

Submitted by HDR

Project Info

Size: 186,871 sq ft

Akridge is commited to providing high quality, socially responsible, and eco-friendly office spaces in metro DC and throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. 2100 L Street NW is a 186,871 GSF, 10-story office tower located on the corner of 21st Street NW and K Street NW in Washington, DC, previously the site of the Humane Society of the United States headquarters. Constructed in collaboration with rehabilitation of the adjacent Stevens School, named for Congressman and noted abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, the building boasts a host of amenities including landscaped rooftop terrace, penthouse lounge with adjacent conference center and catering kitchen, and a spa-quality fitness facility. Core building space provides ground floor retail shells and office lobby with private and open office spaces throughout the upper floors designed to accommodate over 650 employees. In keeping with the site’s humanitarian history and the ethos of the adjacent school, the site features a pocket park connecting the school and office buildings that features a statue of Stevens and an art gallery celebrating African American artists. These commitments naturally coalesced in the project’s achievement of LEED Core & Shell Platinum, exemplifying Akridge’s commitment to the triple bottom line of economic prosperity, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship.

[Original article and scorecard]