ALEXANDRIA, VA. — Duke Realty Corp. has broken ground on a 1.7 million-square-foot office property, located in its 12-building Mark Center office park in Alexandria, that will house U.S. Army personnel affected by 2005’ Base Closure and Realignment Commission campaign. The development encompasses two office towers, two parking garages and a public transportation center. The property will be built to LEED Silver certification, and construction of the transportation center will follow LEED Gold guidelines. Delivery of the $1 billion project is slated for September 2011.
Completion of the project will relocate a substantial workforce into the immediate community. Although most of the workers have been going to work in various offices in the area, the new development will concentrate all the employees in one space.
“A lot of these folks already work within 5 miles of here,” says Peter Scholz of Duke Realty’s Washington, D.C., office. “It’s not as if there will be a substantial number of folks relocating from other parts of the country or even other parts of the city. It’s just going to be a matter of people reorienting their commuting patterns.”
Development of the site, Scholz says, has not been affected by the recession because the project began long before the current economic downturn started wreaking havoc on commercial real estate. Plus construction of the office building is a significant boost to the local economy. Scholz points out that his project is part of a $4 billion influx in development currently slated for the surrounding area.
“In light of the current economic situation,” he says, “having a project of this significance and magnitude is certainly good for the greater economy from a standpoint of the construction jobs it creates and the fact that the materials being used to construct the project are all being either manufactured or sourced locally.”
— Jon Ross