West Knoxville office building to be completed summer 2009

Blue Ridge Development recently celebrated the construction of largest office building in West Knoxville.

The project was designed by The Lewis Group Architects of Knoxville, TN and constructed by Merit construction, also of Knoxville.

Based on a pedestrian-friendly, “town square” concept, the master plan called for a 15-acre, mixed use, commercial development to be located off of Northshore Drive in Knoxville, Tennessee. It consists of a six-story office building with over 200,000 square feet of office space, nearly 80,000 square feet of “high end” retail and restaurant space, a120 room hotel, and a multi-level parking garage.

The main street promenade, provided with sidewalks and traditional street furnishings, winds through a landscaped garden entry before terracing up through several retail blocks and culminating at the fountain, hotel, and office building. One of the city’s greenways also passes through the site, taking advantage of the creek side landscape and architecture of the town center.

Construction began in August 2007 with an extensive site package that included on site removal and crushing of over 40,000 tons of rock. The office building foundation started in January 2008 and construction of the parking garage is set to start in early September.

First phase of the project, the Brookview Promenade office building, is expected to be complete in early summer 2009.

Skanska tapped to manage $120 million Johnson City hospital project

Skanska USA Building Inc. has been named construction manager on a Johnson City hospital budgeted at more than $120 million.

Skanska will also manage pre-construction work on the 80-bed Franklin Woods Community Hospital. The project started construction in June and slated for completion in June 2010.

Karlsberger Architecture is handling design for the 249,771-square-foot hospital which will be part of the Mountain States Health Alliance.

Skanska, which has 60,000 employees in markets in Europe, the U.S. and Latin America, currently has more than $5 billion in health care projects under construction in the U.S.