Beacon Starts Building Charlotte Office Building

Charlotte, NC-based Beacon Development broke ground this week on a new seven-story office building with ground-floor retail at 500 East Morehead in Charlotte. The company, also known as Beacon Partners, first announced plans for the development in February, which required demolition of the existing 44,000-square-foot building on the lot next door to the Dowd YMCA. The demolition process will be followed by vertical construction of the building, which will total 180,000 square feet and will feature 15,000 square feet of retail space. Beacon bought the property in 2012 for $5.25 million, and is planning to finish the building in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Beacon is moving forward with 500 East Morehead on a speculative basis, meaning it has no tenants signed prior to construction, but Mike Harrell, a partner with Beacon, says interest in the development among office users has been strong. "We think the timing is right for new product at this location," said Harrell. "There's lots of interest."

Charlie Swanson and Kristy Venning with Beacon are handling leasing for 500 East Morehead. Balfour Beatty is the general contractor, and BB+M is the architect.

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$1.2B NSA Data Center Breaks Ground in UT

The National Security Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers broke ground this month on a new $1.2 billion data center in Utah according to a Salt Lake Tribune article. The new facility at Camp W.G. Williams National Guard Post, project-managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will be constructed by a joint venture between Balfour Beatty, DPR, and Salt Lake City-based Big-D Construction. The one million square foot facility is the largest Department of Defense project in the nation.

"This will bring 5,000 to 10,000 new jobs during the construction and development phase," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said at the groundbreaking event on January 7. "Once completed, it will support 100 to 200 permanent, high-paid employees."

"We've been fortunate here in the state," said Jim Judd of the Utah AFL-CIO labor unions. "The NSA project will pick up the commercial construction business. It will provide long-term employment help for the state until, hopefully, the economy recovers."

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