Virginia DGS State Office Building and Parking Deck.

The building will provide 350,000 sf of office space to be leased to various state agencies, the majority of which are currently housed in the aging Monroe Building. The proposed 600 space parking deck is sized to reflect the current parking capacity of Monroe. Also in the project scope is a conference and training center to be utilized by not only agency tenants within the new building, but also state agencies across the Richmond area. Since the site is now occupied by a vacant building, RRMM’s scope additionally includes the demolition of that existing building.

DGS identified 8 tenant agencies that currently occupy 260,898 net sf at the existing Monroe Building that will be relocated to the new building. The Commonwealth’s stated desire to modernize state employees’ workplace standards and provide improved and effi cient fl oorplates, the planned total tenant space requirement has been estimated at 145,072 net sf which translates to 234,000 assignable sf with a utilization rate of 181 assignable sf per each employee.

Following extensive site analysis and program confirmation, the Design Team provided DGS multiple massing concepts that demonstrated various configurations of the office floors, the conference & training center, and the parking deck. Each massing option had advantages to consider as compared to other massing options, which led to the selection of the most optimum massing solution to move into detailed planning. Also as mentioned above, the parking deck (indicated in pink below) was initially considered as completely above grade, but upon further analysis, it was determined to be best suited to occur beneath the office tower (indicated in blue below) and conference and training center. Access for office vehicles will therefore occur on Cary Street, and the loading dock will occur on 7th Street.