Construction work – which started in April 2007 – is being undertaken on an extremely tight site bounded on each side by two existing office buildings, one dating from the 1930s, and the other from the 1950s. At its outset, the project involved the demolition of a surface level car park which once occupied the site and its relocation beneath the new building. One of the key challenges of the scheme has been to ensure that the existing offices – housing more than 550 employees – have been able to continue operating while the new building is implemented. The glass skylight system which forms the atrium provides the principal and unifying architectural feature of the design – has been fully pre-fabricated off site and delivered as 36 separate units from a factory in Pennsylvania. These were mounted on structural steel members and loaded onto lorries driven along inter-state highways over a distance of approximately 200 miles. This approach to the construction process has significantly minimised the time spent erecting the structure on site and ensures high quality finishes.

A new, landscaped public realm will be created at the front of the building which will offer a significant public amenity to office workers from the surrounding area in this part of
Washington DC.

The construction process is based on delivering an office building with a central core but with floorplates which allows for highly flexible use of space throughout the building. The building is formed from a 30' x 40' grid of insitu concrete columns and a post-tensioned, thin slab.

300 New Jersey Avenue is an ideal location for law firms seeking an office close to the Capitol. Some 60 per cent of the space in the new building is pre-let to the existing tenant of the neighbouring buildings, law firm Jones Day. The two adjacent structures will be linked through the new building at 16 different locations via exposed steel and glass bridges.

Construction is due to be completed during the second quarter of 2009. The challenge has been to create a ten storey office block on a site the parameters of which are severely restricted by a Metro line to the north, an 18th century underground river to the south east and major utilities to the west. The result is a scheme which does not undermine its relationship with the surrounding buildings.