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A preview of ASCE's new home in Reston-how the building was acquired, how it will look when the work now under way is complete and the fund-raising efforts. It's happening. ASCE is moving to Reston, Va. Most of the Society's staff is now in the new suburban office building, where they look out at trees instead of traffic, and the sound of New York police, ambulances and honking horns are mostly a memory. Those employees still in the United Engineering Center in New York will join the Reston staff by next summer.
Once ASCE's Board of Direction officially voted to move in April 1993, the rest fell into place with dizzying speed. A search committee was set up in February 1994. By September of that year, only seven months later, ASCE closed on a 107,000 sq ft office building, then called Parallel Centre. The committee that accomplished this feat was headed by then Vice President David Bayer. The other members were then Director Edward Robinson and Luther Graef, vice president at that time. Ex-officio members were Stafford Thornton and James Poirot, then presidentelect and president, respectively.
The actual purchaser was the ASCE Foundation, set up to oversee the purchase, ownership and rental operations. Curtis Deane is president of the Foundation. According to Deane, who worked with the search committee, the group looked at more than 30 properties. The Washington, D.C. office of the real estate firm Julien Studley analyzed prospective properties and the committee narrowed the field to about 20 buildings that they then visited. Graef describes these as "old, new, small and large, but the Reston building most nearly matched what we wanted." Two principal criteria were that the building be between 60,000 and 100,000 sq ft, and that ASCE have sole ownership. In the end, the field narrowed to the Reston building with 107,000 sq ft. The closest competitor was just too small, says Deane, at 57,000 sq ft.
The next step was a tough negotiation. ASCE initially offered just over $6 million but ultimately agreed to pay $8 million for the property, which had been taken over by Chase Manhattan Bank and an unnamed Japanese bank in 1991. Deane says the banks had foreclosed on a $13.4 million mortgage. Assuming it was...