Projects awarded

Comcast Center, a 57-story office tower, will be Philadelphia's tallest building when completed in the fall of 2007. The 975-foot-high building was designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, New York, with Kendall/Heaton Associates of Houston as associate architect. Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, has signed a 15-year lease and plans to occupy about 44% of it. Comcast Center will be 30 feet taller than One Liberty Place, which in the late 1980s broke the informal "gentleman's agreement" not to erect any buildings taller than the 491-foot City Hall tower. Liberty Property Trust is the developer, and L.F. Driscoll Co., Bala Cynwyd, Pa., is the general contractor. After appearing to be stalled last year, the project moved ahead with a $30 million infusion of infrastructure funding from the state of Pennsylvania.
Adjacent to 30th Street Station and on the opposite side of the Schuylkill River, the 28-story Cira Center Office Building has been topped out. Cesar Pelli & Associates is the design architect, Turner Construction Co. the general contractor, and Brandywine Realty Trust the developer for this building, which will be Pennsylvania's tallest outside of the Center City area.

The Newport Beach, Calif., office of St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies is general contractor for a 240,000-sf addition at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif. The $75 million patient care center, designed by Seattle-based NBBJ, is scheduled for completion in early 2007.

Grimm+Parker, Calverton, Md., is architect for the $17.8 million Rockville (Md.) Library. Rockville-based Forrester Construction Co. is general contractor for the 101,000-sf facility, which is scheduled for completion in mid-2006.