A project underway in Baltimore City is demonstrating that while providing office space to government clients may not be the hottest CRE market, it’s still generating some big opportunities for developers, brokers and builders.
Crews are currently transforming the former Social Security Administration building in the Metro West complex into a modern, centralized facility for the Maryland Department of Health.
Green Street Ventures had purchased the 1.1 million-square-foot building and landed a contract with the Maryland Department of General Services (DGS) to fit out nearly half the space for the Department of Health.
Demolition teams stripped the early 1980s building down to its structure last year. Now, a construction team led by Chesapeake Contracting Group is transforming 550,000 square feet into modern offices, support space and a conference center for health staff. Crews are also building out nearly 250,000 square feet of parking space within the building and constructing a new, 350,000-square-foot, post-tensioned parking garage onsite.
In total, the project will provide nearly 1.2 million square feet of leased space to the government. The remaining nearly half-million square feet of space will be fit out for other, future tenants.
Projects for government agencies haven’t been common for private commercial general contractors in the recent past, said Will Stann, Vice President of Chesapeake Contracting Group. “However, we’re seeing more of them nowadays than we used to. There are opportunities where private developers are able to handle construction and leasing for a government agency, and it’s a prime opportunity for Chesapeake to apply our commercial expertise to support companies serving government agencies.”
Government tenants, Stann noted, can have specific, uncommon, even challenging requirements for their space.
“Chesapeake has been serving as an advisor to Green Street Ventures to do a detailed study of the requirements the Maryland Department of Health has and ensure those items are incorporated in the design,” he said.
A year of pre-construction collaboration with DGS, the health department, Green Street Ventures, Design Collective and project engineers helped address tenant requirements. It also alerted the project team early to challenges they would face during construction.
“The size of telecom rooms was limited, so we had to come up with unique solutions on how to make modern infrastructure fit in 1980s spaces,” Stann said. “The ceiling heights were low so we had to work closely with our mechanical, electrical, plumbing, low voltage, security and sprinkler subcontractors to make all of those systems fit.”
Early identification of construction challenges and tenant needs, he added, enabled Chesapeake Contracting to utilize pull planning and lean construction scheduling to prevent major delays in completion.
Mentioned in this article: Chesapeake Contracting Group, Design Collective, Green Street Ventures.