Earth Finally Moving at Rhode Island Avenue Office Building

The Center for Strategic and International Studies is finally doing a lot less thinking and a lot more digging, as dirt is finally moving at their site for a new headquarters at 1616 Rhode Island Avenue NW.

The new $100-million think-tank headquarters, which was to break ground in September 2011, was delayed several times as HITT Contracting, the general contractor worked out key technical issues for the building's underground levels, Ryan Sickles, a CSIS spokesman, said.

The new CSIS space will share the neighborhood with the new University of California Washington Center and the Human Rights Campaign headquarters.

Designed by Hickok Cole Architects, the CSIS headquarters will be nine stories, 130,000 s.f., and should achieve LEED-Silver certification, with substantial help from a green roof.

The light, open space is a substantial contrast to its fortress-like location at 1800 K Street, NW, where it has been for more than 50 years. CSIS will move when the project completes in the fall of 2013.

CSIS bought its 15,400-sf property in the Golden Triangle in 2007, for what was reported to be just over $31 million.

(photos courtesy Hickok Cole)

Washington D.C. real estate development news

CSIS Headquarters Under Construction Next Month

In exactly one month, September 26th, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) will begin construction on its new headquarters at 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW.

While a misleading "symbolic groundbreaking" took place in May, the event was mostly fanfare, done in large part for the benefit of the Board, confirms CSIS's external relations department. Four months later, CSIS will move dirt.

The new $100-million headquarters, designed by Hickok Cole Architects, will be 9 stories, 130,000 sf, and should achieve LEED-Silver certification, with substantial help from a green roof. HITT Contracting is the general contractor on the project.

CSIS is moving from its current, 50-year location at 1800 K Street, NW, when the project completes in the fall of 2013. CSIS bought its new 15,400-sf property in the Golden Triangle in 2007, for what was reported to be just over $31 million. With the sale came the working PUD which was approved by the DC Office of Zoning in August of 2009.

CSIS's new home will be sandwiched between the Human Rights Campaign headquarters, and the University of California Washington Center building, which sits on the other half of the PUD site. The property fronts 230' of Rhode Island Ave and the new structure will take up virtually all - 99.5% - of the site, which once held the Gramercy Inn, but has been a parking lot for some time.

Update 9/28: According to a CSIS spokesperson, ground breaking has been pushed back to mid-October, or "worst case scenario November 1st," due to subcontractor liaisons affecting the sheeting and shoring portion of construction

Washington D.C. real estate development news

The Great Race

By Beth Herman Le Mans. Indy. Iditarod. The Preakness. The moon. When we think of legendary races, the quest to renovate the venerated Hay-Adams, 800 16^th St. NW, doesn't readily come to mind. But for an intrepid pit crew that included the hotel’s owner/developer, architect, designer, general contractor, an alliance of engineers and other consultants, adding a 9^th story to the Washington landmark hotel took on a whole new meaning when the finish line was only 90 days from demolition, due to an immovable International Monetary Fund guest booking. With feats that included demolishing an 8^th floor rooftop farm containing all of the hotel’s mechanical systems, emergency generator, elevator machine room and other structures, the decision to jettison the Hay-Adam’s rooftop tented function space— used for more than a decade for weddings and other fetes— in favor of building permanent event space, plus a penthouse for systems and machines, was three years in the entitling process and a scant few months in the brunt of its execution. "We realized that the Comprehensive Plan for the District of Columbia allowed for another story to be built,” said B.F. Saul Co. Senior Vice President of Real Estate Development J. Page Lansdale of the iconic structure, “but I could talk for hours about the design challenges.” Green flag Created in 1928 as an Italian Renaissance-style apartment-hotel by renowned developer Harry Wardman and architect Mirhan Mesrobian, the then 138-room Hay-Adams with singular views of Lafayette Park and the White House became the District’s pied-a-terre-of-choice for international glitterati like Ethel Barrymore and Charles Lindbergh. More recently, literary giant Laura Hillenbrand and her husband exchanged wedding vows in the hotel’s storied sanctums, and in 2008/early 2009, famiglia Obama made the venue its pre-inaugural address. For Lansdale, Principal Lee Becker and project manager Brian Farrell of Hartman-Cox Architects, the HITT Contracting team who’d done a previous Hay-Adams renovation a decade ago, structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti, mechanical/ electrical guides Girard Engineering and designer Thomas Pheasant, among many others, building an addition at warp-speed on an 11,000 s.f. historical footprint galvanized them for what some say was unprecedented, exhaustive time-and-teamwork challenge. Closing the hotel in June, 2010 and retaining management staff for the projected October reopening, among their many objectives was to essentially set a time record, Lansdale indicated. In order to meet the challenge, long lead items such as structured steel and elevator equipment had been ordered prior to June, as the team sought to augment two passenger elevators and one freight elevator by engaging an empty shaft from the 1920s that had never been utilized for a fourth cab. Desiring an express elevator from the lobby to what would be the new Top of the Hay, a high-speed conveyor was installed in the space. In order to “turn the hotel back on” for the October IMF mega-reservation, booked one year earlier, framing the addition—plus new plumbing and mechanical systems, elevator system, life safety systems, fenestration, restroom construction (the former tented space had no facilities, with event-goers descending to the 8^th floor) and more—had to be done immediately, with workers toiling seven days a week in two 10-hour shifts. With the cessation of construction noise and vibration in 90 days, painting, carpeting, tile, mill and stonework, fitting out the kitchen and the balance of the finishes, would go on into December on a more traditional work schedule, over a live hotel. 

Rounding curves; avoiding debris Built more than 80 years ago and listed on the National Historic Register, the team had to be “convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt,” according to Lansdale, that the existing structure and its foundation could support the load of both a 9^th floor penthouse—which would house the elevator machine room, mechanical systems, etc.—and the new event space. Investigating load and accruing wind shear, structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti bored through existing footings, into the soil, to produce a detailed analysis. "I will say it wasn’t an immediate response from them to say ‘no problem,’” Lansdale conceded, adding that the prospect of underpinning the entire building, to make it structurally sound enough to support the event space and penthouse, may have made the project cost-prohibitive. “That was the first hurdle,” he said when the structure was ultimately deemed capable. A dearth of building information from the 1920s precipitated a column survey next by Thornton Tomasetti and HITT Contracting, which revealed between 55 and 60 existing columns, to comply with D.C. construction mandates that the new steel columns had to land directly on the center line of the old ones. “It was a tremendous piece of design and engineering on behalf of the designer and contractor working together,” Lansdale said, noting only two locations were missed. “If you fabricate something that doesn’t fit at all, you’ve really lost time and energy,” he said. Citing another design challenge, Lansdale said among zoning requirements was that the new structure had to have a 1:1 setback from the existing roof parapet. With the desired ceiling height to be quite formidable, the space would become “skinny” and almost unusable. Embarking on a series of studies to maximize the space’s volume and meet the requisite 1:1 setback, the result was an 8-ft. perimeter roof edge line, but with a vaulted skylight system that reaches about 13 feet at its apex. Staying on track Usual (and not so usual) zoning quagmires included a conflict between the District’s Comprehensive Plan, which allowed for a story to be added, and existing zoning, which precluded any additional height. A rezoning application ensued before Lansdale, et al, could submit to the Commission of Fine Arts and Historic Preservation Review Board. Where the separate penthouse construction was concerned, a Board of Zoning Adjustment application was required, with the letter of the law stating that this structure, also, needed to have a 1:1 setback, but from the addition beneath it. “There was no way to build (the penthouse for systems and machines) without a waiver of that requirement,” Lansdale affirmed, noting it was ultimately achieved, though the equivalent of a short prison sentence—beginning in 2007—was spent navigating zoning and review board processes. With 11,000 s.f. of separable space, in addition to a kitchen, that becomes five function rooms, public spaces and restrooms, design features and finishes include Crema Marfil marble, custom stained wood, Charles Edwards brass lantern fixtures and fabric wall panels. The addition’s perimeter faces 16^th and H Streets and has what Lansdale said is a giant French door system with double-hinged doors that fall back on themselves, leading out to a balcony with sparkling vistas. “This was a good project to do because architecturally, it really cleaned up the roof compared to what it was before with a tent and exposed mechanical system,” Lansdale said, noting the first events were accommodated in January. “The penthouse part of the design organizes and takes everything out of sight, and if you’re standing on the street, the only thing you see is a set back 9^th floor event space that is actually very beautiful. It’s a completely different ‘skyscaped’ look for that particular address.” 

HITT Hits a Home Run with New Falls Church Facility

They say all that glitters isn’t gold. Sometimes it’s silver, and that’s the goal for Falls Church, Va.-based HITT Contracting Inc.

Seven months into its brand new 140,000 s.f. facility at 2900 Fairview Park Drive (HITT occupies 2 1/2 floors of the four-story building), the 73-year-old company with annual revenue of more than $900 million and 700 employees in five cities has just finished the LEED certification commissioning process, with Silver a viable prize.

Occupying only 6 percent of a 17-acre Fairview Park campus, reduced site disturbance was one of many objectives on HITT’s relocation agenda. The company was compelled to move from five disjointed buildings in another part of Falls Church due to a consistent growth pattern. But housing approximately 400 Falls Church-based employees and showcasing its business weren’t the only goals that HITT, with 47 green building projects in various stages of development or completion, wanted to meet. Working closely with owner/developers Fairview Property Investments, LLC and Rushmark Properties, LLC, along with Noritake Architects and interior designer Susan Stine, principal of Red Team Strategies, HITT chose to become a beacon of green construction in its own right.


“From the beginning we took the approach from a LEED perspective that we want to do things that make sense,” said Kim Pexton, HITT’s Director of Sustainable Construction, a LEED-accredited professional (AP) since 2001 and former 5-year member of the local U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) national capital region board. “But we don’t want to fit a square peg in a round hole. If there are particular credits and design requirements behind those credits that don’t make sense for us and our facility and our beliefs, we said we’re not going to do it. …We just wanted to do what we felt was right,” she affirmed.

To that end, and with the responsibility of maintaining its vast, gently sloping campus, HITT worked with landscape architects Rhodeside & Harwell, Inc. to institute rain gardens as part of a storm water management system (gardens for this purpose are not a LEED requirement). Utilizing a native and drought-tolerant planting scheme requiring no permanent irrigation system (LEED compliant, if one elects to have a garden, when pursuing water efficiency credits), the rain gardens treat runoff from the upper half of the parking lot. Without these gardens, untreated water would flow directly into the site’s storm water management ponds.

Two storm water management ponds - one large and considered primary - receive rainwater diverted through the gardens from other places on the property, some channeled by strategically placed regionally-imported boulders (rather than unattractive culverts and drainpipes), with suspended solids and phosphates settling into the ponds. The water then goes back into the watershed. To enlighten visitors about the way it works, with green education part of the LEED accreditation process, a series of recycled signs made of resin and metal with a VOC-free printing process punctuate the site.

Roots and Reflective Materials

Stine, who first designed the company’s headquarters 17 years ago, recalled that W.A. HITT Decorating Co. started as a tiny, family run business during the Great Depression. Co-founder and matriarch Myrtle Hitt, who Stine knew personally, worked and handwrote checks until a week before she died at the age of 90. Current Chairman Russell Hitt, Warren (W.A.) and Myrtle’s son, is credited with growing the business into a world class interior contractor. Though the mantle has been passed to Co-presidents James Millar and grandson Brett Hitt, Russell – with a proclivity for the word “howdy” and a legendary perfectionism that included taking a hammer to a wall of which he didn’t approve – reportedly still gets to work at 4 a.m. each day, crossing HITT’s light reflective outdoor concrete surfaces or “impervious paving.” According to Pexton, these surfaces, as opposed to blacktop, reduce the heat island effect. She noted they also have a white reflective membrane on the roof instead of a traditional black roof, which reduces roof temperatures by 30 degrees. “It has a huge impact on interior spaces and your overall demand for cooling,” she explained.

The building’s interior includes an aptly named “Redskins room” replete with leather recliners and a 50-inch flat screen TV. Other entities include a training room for ongoing classes, café for breakfast and lunch, coffee bar, reprographics shop, dry cleaning drop-off and pick-up point, hair salon (by appointment), and a 5,180 s.f. warehouse for building materials with protective plywood walls recycled from its former headquarters. Estimated to use 46 percent less water than the previous building, plumbing fixtures are dual flush with waterless urinals in the men’s rooms. Pexton said HITT met the LEED innovative wastewater technology requirement, which is to reduce sewerage conveyance by 50 percent. A ladies room across from the company’s fitness center boasts a steam shower and also a wheelchair accessible/no threshold shower, with fitness center floors made of recycled rubber. Sweeping glass doors open from the center of the gym provide access to a walking/bike path.

See and Be Seen

According to Stine, HITT’s lighting system uses T5 technology. Ninety-seven percent is motion sensor-triggered, including office task lighting, with metal halide systems in open work areas to cut down on wattage. Overhead lighting is reduced by about half from the old building, attributed in part to 25-30 percent more glass in the new facility. From most points in the building, employees have great views to the outside and a lot of natural light coming in. In fact, two of the facility’s three reclaimed White Oak staircases are glassed in and by their nature motivate employees to use them instead of elevators - a large part of the design statement and criteria, Stine said.

With visibility key in every sense of the word, in its continuing pursuit of business HITT liberally uses interior glass to display its bid room – the company’s nerve center – to clients and other guests, as well as in its recruitment strategy. James Landefeld, senior vice president of major projects, explained that the bid room’s 16 equally-spaced hanging microphones have replaced the relic spider phones in most conference rooms' middle of the table, allowing up to 32 seated staff to simultaneously participate in conference calls with subcontractor prospects. The room is also equipped for video conferencing, which according to Landefeld will come in handy for long distance meetings as HITT embarks on a $62 million Tier III data center for the Denver Federal Center. While placed outside the bid room for all-company access, a computer operated "Bid Board" that is displayed on a 65" monitor has replaced the traditional white board in terms of efficiency.

With 3,000 projects on its dance card each year and a campus designed to facilitate business into the future, HITT remains committed to life in its present environment. Casting an eye to the very distant future, however, the building was conceptualized to accommodate multi-tenants with minimal incursion into its current design, yet another hallmark of its sustainability.