More Space at Journal Center

Spec Office Building Takes Shape

On the heels of their successful phase 1 at Journal Center, the Phoenix office of Opus West Construction is wrapping up a second phase at the office development on Interstate 25 in Albuquerque.

 

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Crews started construction on the 66,000-sq.-ft., two-story office project in January with Albuquerque's G & H Construction pouring slabs and preparing to tilt the 36-ft. high walls up, but as with many other projects in the Southwest, Mother Nature had her own ideas.

"It was a tight schedule and with the weather conditions we had last January with some of the worst weather," said Rick Hughes, president of G & H Construction. "It was the wettest January in 200 years. >> We never get rain here but we got five inches in one month."

While the first phase of Journal Center took on a more elaborate architectural design because of its high-visibility location fronting I-25, the second phase is more low-key.

The $3.5 million two-story project features 33,000-sq. ft. of space on each floor plate.

"The previous building we did had the highest-end architecture in the business park with a lot of expensive materials," said Opus West associate project manager Vanessa Canori. "This was more of an economical type of building."

Architects did dress up the project through, with cut outs on the corners of the building and full height glass curtain walls to allow plenty of natural light into the office spaces.

Unlike the phase 1 project which was integrally colored, the second phase is painted concrete with colors familiar to the area.

"We used some vivid earth tones," said Opus West architect and V.P. of architecture Bob Carli. "The color scheme reflects the natural colors of the New Mexican desert."

Capped with a built-up roof, the phase 2 project uses a split mechanical system with heat pumps on the first level and roof top package units for the second level.

A sloping site and a nearby city turn around presented opportunities for designers.

"We had some nice site features," said architect Hal Snow of Opus West. "The site drops quite a bit running north to south so we used some retaining walls and tried to integrate our landscaping with the nice city turnaround at the intersection of Tiburon and Masthead Circle."

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