New FAA Southwest Region Office Going up in North Fort Worth

June 5, 2013
1,600 FAA employees will move to the building when it opens, expected in October 2015.

June 04--FORT WORTH -- A joint venture between Trammell Crow Co. and USAA Real Estate Co. has bought 45 acres at the northeast corner of Heritage Trace Parkway and Interstate 35W where it will build the Federal Aviation Administration's new Southwest Region office.

Trammell Crow said 1,600 FAA employees will move to the building when it opens, expected in October 2015. Trammell Crow released some details about the project Tuesday, saying that it will be a six-story, 357,214-square-foot office building and that construction will begin in September. The building will have silver LEED certification for its energy efficiency.

Trammell Crow and USAA Real Estate of San Antonio, an equity partner in the deal, bought the land in the Alliance Corridor on April 18 from Alliance developer Hillwood Properties, according to deed records.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The FAA has been in a 290,000-square-foot building at Sylvania Avenue and Meacham Boulevard for 20 years and in other nearby offices. The FAA has said it has doubled the number of employees in Fort Worth since 2006, when it reorganized and moved its air traffic management services for the 17-state central region to Fort Worth.

The General Services Administration, which selected the site, began looking for a developer in 2009 and put the land under contract about 18 months ago. In November, the GSA signed a 20-year, build-to-suit lease with Trammell Crow. More than 20 developers sought the deal, and the field was narrowed to five finalists.

It will be one of the most secure government buildings, said Tom Finan, managing director of Trammell Crow's Washington, D.C., office, which has been involved in developing about 2 million square feet of government office space. The firm's Dallas office is also working on the project.

The FAA has nine regional centers and is consolidating to three super-regional centers. This is the first of those, Finan said. "It's really a neat deal," he said.

The new building was designed by Gensler, a global architecture firm that has worked with Trammell Crow on more than 1.25 million square feet of government projects in the Washington area, Finan said.

Sandra Baker, 817-390-7727 Twitter: @SandraBakerFWST

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