Rebuilding for the future

Washington, D.C. is a mix of the old and the new, the established and the up-and-comers.

Every time I get a chance to visit our nation’s capitol, I am impressed with its formal grandeur from one perspective and its residents’ get-it-done attitude on the other. With a steady employer like the U.S. Government, it’s a hotbed of creative thinking (in most sectors) and a desire to keep pushing the envelope in the name of progress.

It wasn’t much of a surprise to me when I was researching contractors for this issue that my digging led me to the banks of the Potomac.

It’s where I found the gutting of the former Department of Transportation building and, in its place, the new Constitution Center emerging.

This ’60s-era building had gotten rather tired over the past decades, to the point that the Department of Transportation vacated it and left the building owner, David Nassif Associates, with something of a white elephant on its hands.

The building occupies a city block and sits right on the Metro subway line. Its bones were still solid, but a major facelift still couldn’t bring the building up to new building standards – something expected in the competitive office space market.

To that end, the building has been taken down to its basic structure and is being completely retrofitted. Gone is the high-maintenance decaying marble facade, which is being replaced with a Level IV blast-resistant glass curtain wall that opens up beautiful panoramic views of the capitol. The inefficient HVAC system is being replaced by a chilled beam system that’s common in Europe yet almost unheard of in the United States. Further, the system was modified to save overhead space, which opened up ceiling heights for more usable office areas.

During demolition, great pains were taken to recycle as much of the refuse as possible. In the design phase, engineers, architects, the owner and contractors pulled together to upgrade the building to be extremely energy efficient and wired for the Information Age.

Their efforts should allow them to attain the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification.

Although office rental rates are closely governed, Nassif and Associates spokespersons believe the high rating will attract clients who want to achieve better total cost of office space. That’s possible with a close eye on the LEED requirements.