Simon Property Group Corporate Headquarters

Award of Merit: Commercial (Large)

The Simon Corporate Headquarters in Indianapolis is a 14-story, 350,000-sq.-ft. office building in downtown Indianapolis.

advertisement

The building has a two-story, first floor entry and lobby, 13 floors of office space, service area, service equipment rooms, restaurant and plaza. Floors 12 through 14 incorporate a three-story atrium, while floors 13 and 14 include a two-story outdoor terrace.

The proposed site provided for the office and a two-level reconstructed parking structure below grade to support the office.

The site, Capitol Commons, was a prominent city park at street level and two-story, below-grade parking structure under the park from 1987.

The scope of work included the demolition of approximately 20 percent of the existing underground parking structure and existing garage utility relocation, while the remaining portion of the garage was to continue to be operational for public parking for the duration of the project.

The existing park and below-grade structure had cracks in the walls and precast. Crack monitors were installed in many of the larger cracks and installed seismic monitors in the garage and surrounding structures to monitor movement of the garage or adjacent buildings during demolition and build-back of the garage.

A Change in Designers

The principals were working on the project deal for more than 12 months before the team could settle on a design, due to the fact that the site location was unknown until the city of Indianapolis offered the park.

With downtown Indianapolis being the location, the design by Atlanta-based Cooper Carry Architects began to take form and was finalized in September 2004.

When the design was 60 percent complete, Simon decided it preferred a different design.

The last meeting with Cooper Carry was Nov. 3, 2004, and the first design meeting with Indianapolis-based Ratio Architects, the new architect, was Nov. 17, 2004.

The original schedule dictated by Simon was to begin partial occupancy no July 5, 2006. This was accomplished, even with the design change.
In fact, Simon occupied the building in full in September this year. Extra hours from the design team helped expedite the design, in addition to contractors working 10-hour days and sometimes six and seven days a week.

Jury Comments: "The logistics of this project merit some recognition: the size, the change in architect and urban setting. Anyone who's been to Indianapolis knows it is not an easy place to build. The architecture is not awe-inspiring, but the architects did a nice job of trying to fit into the park. Indianapolis hasn't had anything like this for a long time."

Click here for more Best of 2006 Award Winners >>