Constitution Center (Washington, D.C.)
The Constitution Center, formerly known as the David Nassif Building, is an office building located at 400 7th Street SW in Washington, D.C. It is high and has 10 floors. Covering an entire city block, it is the largest privately owned office building in Washington, D.C. Current tenants include the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. As of February 2014, Constitution Center was worth $725.8 million, making it the most valuable taxable property in the city.
Original structure
In the 1950s, the U.S. Congress, then the governing institution of the District of Columbia, undertook the Southwest D.C. urban renewal project, the first in the capital district and one of the earliest such programs in the nation. In 1946, Congress passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency and provided legal authority to clear land and funds to spur redevelopment in the capital. Congress also gave the National Capital Planning Commission the authority to designate which land would be redeveloped and how. However, the RLA was not funded until the passage of the Housing Act of 1949. A 1950 study by the NCPC found that the small Southwest quarter of the city suffered from high concentrations of old and poorly maintained buildings, overcrowding, and threats to public health. Competing visions for the redevelopment ranged from renovation to wholesale leveling of neighborhoods, but the latter view prevailed as more likely to qualify for federal funding. Original plans called for the demolition of almost all structures in Southwest Washington beginning in 1950, but legal challenges led to piecemeal razing of the area until the mid-1950s.Issues surrounding the planning and construction of L'Enfant Plaza delayed the construction of any buildings on the block until the late 1960s. In 1963, the RLA purchased the land from the Westminster Memorial Church, Fifth Baptist Church, and homeowners. The United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare wished to purchase the site for its new headquarters, but the RLA declined to sell the property. The RLA attempted to sell the land on January 29, 1965, but there were no buyers.
The building was constructed under an agreement between the General Services Administration and Boston developer David Nassif, Sr. In July 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson began planning to unite various disparate transportation agencies into a new United States Department of Transportation. GSA began seeking to lease or build a structure to house the new agency in late 1965. Donald T. Kirwan, chief of GSA's leasing division, knew Nassif from a previous lease negotiation and discussed the siting of a building and its size with him. Nassif approached the RLA on April 21, 1966, and asked to buy the newly razed block of land bounded by 6th, 7th, D, and E Streets SW. In May 1967, GSA sent a letter to Nassif advising him that it was likely to lease the entire structure he intended to build. The $5.9 million land purchase was finalized on October 30, 1967. The cost of the structure is unclear. On November 15, 1967, Nassif had secured a $39 million construction loan. But The Washington Post pegged the cost of the building at $27 million in July 1968. The newspaper said in August 1970 that the structure cost was $26.5 million. The building was designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone, who also designed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. On April 11, 1968, GSA leased the entire building from Nassif for 20 years for $98 million. John A. Volpe Construction was the chief contractor.
Construction began in July 1968 and was completed in 1969. The main entrance faced 7th Street SW. It included a central courtyard featuring a fountain, footpaths, benches, and landscaping. Four high arcades pierced the building in the center of the block on each side, creating access to the courtyard. The facade's vertical marble ribs were obtained from the same quarry near Carrara, Italy, that provided the marble for the Kennedy Center. The finished building had ten floors, three basement floors, overhanging eaves, and of space. It was the city's largest privately owned office building at the time.
Kirwan's contacts with Nassif later became the subject of a legal investigation. Kirwan not only shared inside information with Nassif about the leasing plans of the GSA, he later invested in Nassif's D.C. business and became an officer in it. This relationship and GSA's irregular leasing of the building became public knowledge in August 1970. An internal GSA audit was critical of the leasing process and the costs of the lease.
That same month, refinancing of the building was called into question. In the U.S., it is common business practice for the initial lender to provide an interim loan to build a building. The interim loan is then paid off by a second lender, who becomes the mortgage lender and receives payments from the building's owner. Riggs Bank, a local D.C. bank, provided Nassif with an interim construction loan. The New York City Employees Retirement System was to have paid off this construction loan. That payment was halted when the loan officer Nassif had dealt with was indicted for taking bribes to approve loans. When the pension fund refused to provide the loan, Riggs Bank sued for payment and threatened to foreclose on the Nassif Building.
From 1969 until 2007, the Nassif Building served as the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The building was designed to have removable interior walls to permit easy reconfiguration of the interior space. In November 1970, the federal government exercised its powers of eminent domain. It seized control of the three-story basement parking garage from Nasif to provide inexpensive parking for DOT workers. Over the years, so many government workers complained of ailments while working in the structure that some believed it suffered from sick building syndrome. David Nassif Associates, owner of the building, disputed these claims. However, when the Department of Transportation announced it would leave the building in 2000, the owners promised a $100 million renovation that included a new air ventilation and cleaning system as an inducement for the agency to stay. The owners also unsuccessfully sued the General Services Administration in 1999 to force it to renew the federal lease on the building. The Department of Transportation completed its move out of the Nassif Building and into its new headquarters in June 2007.
The L'Enfant Plaza Metro station opened an escalator entrance in the structure's north arcade on July 1, 1977. The entrance was one of two that opened that day. The third entrance opened in October 1977. In June 1992, Virginia Railway Express opened the $1.1 million VRE L'Enfant Station on Virginia Avenue SE.
Renovation
In 2006, Nassif Associates announced a $220 million renovation of the building and renamed it "Constitution Center". SmithGroup was the architectural firm overseeing the redesign, and Davis Construction oversaw the construction.The renovation included some of the highest security features of any building in the D.C. area. They included a central and perimeter security system; closing of the central plaza of the building, which, along with other changes, increased its interior footage by ; steel-jacketed underground parking garage columns capable of withstanding a powerful explosion; six fully staffed security screening points; concrete blockades built into the façade; communication, potable water, and utilities contained in blast-proof spaces; ventilation shafts for the parking garage in a secure area; and special security procedures to obtain access to the building's critical systems. The security enhancements made the office building suitable for all federal agencies except for the United States Department of Defense. The underground parking garage contains 1,500 spaces.
Several amenities were also added to the building. These included a, 400-seat auditorium on the courtyard/plaza level; a six-room, conference center which can accommodate meetings of 10 to 500 people; a full-service cafeteria on the plaza level, with access to the courtyard; and a fitness center for 100 people.
The exterior of the building was also radically changed. The celebrated key visual feature of the building, its exterior vertical white marble ribbing, was completely removed after it was found to be bowed from age and weather. Although this fundamentally changed the nature of Durrell's building, there was almost no public outcry. It was replaced by an energy-efficient, all-glass facade. Perhaps the most significant renovation feature was the structure's use of a chilled beam HVAC system, which uses chilled or heated water circulated in strategically placed columns in the interior space to cool and warm the building. To test the efficiency of the chilled beam technology, the system was installed in the penthouse of the building and tested for a full year. The architect agreed to use the system after the test outperformed specifications. The installation represented the first large-scale use of the chilled beam technology in the United States. Other energy-saving enhancements included motion and daylight detectors to turn lights off when not needed, and special exterior windows that automatically dim to prevent daytime heating. The building's ventilation system was also upgraded. The renovation left the structure with of interior space. The final cost of the renovation was pegged at $250 million.
Some aesthetic improvements were made as well. The building now features a park in its open-to-the-sky central courtyard. Most of the courtyard's concrete was removed, and trees, shrubs, and flowers were planted to absorb rainwater. The park, which is now no longer accessible by the public, also includes a huge granite abstract art sculpture by Richard Deutsch. The sculpture is meant to reflect the original facade of the building by Edward Durrell Stone as well as the memory of David Nassif, Sr. and his son, David Nassif, Jr. The L'Enfant Plaza Metro station still has an entrance under the building on D Street SW. The renovation installed artwork by internationally-known artist Stephen Knapp near this entrance, in which strong beams of light are passed through dyed glass to splay brightly colored patterns on the ceiling. The light sculpture, titled "Transformation", symbolizes the building's renovation and rebirth.
The Constitution Center is registered with the Green Building Council for Gold LEED Certification.
The renovated Constitution Center won two awards. The Mid-Atlantic Construction gave the building its "Project of the Year – Renovation/Restoration" accolade in December 2010. On March 25, 2011, the Washington Building Congress bestowed its 2011 WBC Craftsmanship Award on J.E. Richards, Inc. for excellence in workmanship in installing the power generation, distribution, and switchgear at Constitution Center.
In January 2011, Constitution Center was valued at $446 million by city tax assessors, making it the third most valuable private property in the city that year.