Charlotte Office Towers Continue to Reach Skyward
Batson-Cook Co. of West Point, Ga., in a joint venture with H.J. Russell & Co. of Atlanta, is working on the 48-story Duke Energy Center office tower, a part of the $1.3-billion Wells Fargo Cultural Campus, formerly the Wachovia First Street Cultural Campus. Batson-Cook holds $420 million in contracts for the project.
“The work is exactly on schedule,” says Bob Bertges, director of corporate real estate for Wachovia. “The building will be done at the end of this year.”
The tower topped out in June. At level 42, the tower truncates and switches to structural steel with a nontriangulated truss system.
“The top was set up with compound miters, and to make it fit was a challenge,” says Curt Rigney, project manager for Batson-Cook. A 3D survey conducted after construction overlayed the architectural model with the as-built, and “everything was within tolerances,” Rigney adds.
Duke Energy of Charlotte will lease approximately 22 floors in the office tower. The energy company will keep its existing headquarters building and consolidate operations from other Charlotte locations.
“We received favorable lease terms from Wells Fargo/Wachovia and it is an excellent opportunity for us to reaffirm our commitment to the area,” says Duke Energy spokesperson Tom Shiel.
Wells Fargo & Co. of San Francisco, which purchased Wachovia, plans to take between 400,000 and 500,000 sq ft of space in the 1.5-million-sq-ft tower. The bank has held off completing the four levels of trading floors.
Wachovia decided not to build the condominium portion of the project after the residential market fell. It did place the infrastructure, including utilities and elevator shafts, for that aspect of the campus, and in the future, the site could become a hotel or residential complex.
Useful Sources
• Bank of America Corporate Center http://www.1bankofamericacenter.com/
• Charlotte Center City Partners http://www.charlottecentercity.org/
