Ragnar Benson Completes Class "A" Office Building
Author: Ragnar Benson
Date posted: 8/17/2009
A new 3-story, $8.7 million, office building has emerged from the former corn field along the I-90 corridor north of Newburg Road. The construction of One Bell Valley Commons on a 4.39 acre site was recently completed by Ragnar Benson for C-Bro Ltd. Development Group including the office build-out for the prominent accounting firm McGladrey. This is the first building within the 40-acre Phase One development for the Bell Valley Commons Subdivision.
Through William Charles, Ragnar Benson was awarded this Design-Build office building in November 2007 with ground breaking in July 2008 and occupancy in June 2009. Collaboration among the entire team of designers and constructors was instrumental in this timely completion in addition to the design approach of simple elegance and efficient use of space. Using a 12-foot wide precast concrete exterior wall, not only established an effective office building module, but allowed us to rapidly erect the exterior shell and interior steel framing before the winter of 2008. The 51-foot long wall panels were at the maximum legal weight for transportation from the precast concrete fabricator. Using two concrete colors together with different finishing techniques gives the building its distinctive 3-color appearance.
A rectangular floor plan was selected to allow as much natural light as possible into the building while maintaining a central compact core for elevators, exit stairs, restrooms, mechanical and electrical rooms and duct shafts. Maximizing the floor to floor height was a key component to increasing the ceiling height within the spaces in addition to taller windows to allow more natural light into the building. With a building rentable area at 62,015 square feet provides a Building Efficiency of 92% exceeding the typical 80 to 85% in today’s office building market.
Additional features include a two-story entrance lobby finished in Sapele wood with marble wall tile, stainless steel trim, and a second floor glass rail overview. Energy efficiency was carefully considered and achieved with wall and roof insulation values per the Illinois Energy Code, a white reflective roof membrane, low-E tinted glass, and high efficient roof-top heating and cooling units.