If you want to lure COVID-19 wary workers back to the office, it helps to bait your hook with something worth coming to.
Seneca Commercial Real Estate took this notion to an extreme, delivering a Class A office building called Edge@West in the middle of the pandemic offering a surplus of amenities that go far beyond the break-room ping pong table and Keurig-outfitted kitchenette.
How about a workspace with fireplaces, a staffed coffee bar, mini-market, fitness center with lockers and showers and a basketball court, putting green and Bocce court? For the health conscious, there's an HVAC system that allows twice as much fresh air to enter the building as older Class A buildings and makes use of one filter to remove dust and particles as well as a plasma filter to fight airborne viruses.
The building also includes multiple huddle rooms and collaboration areas, a group fitness/training area and booths for making private phone calls and working alone.
It all adds up to a property that is 90% leased at rates 20% above market for Creve Coeur Class A office space, according to the brokers leasing the property.
Market watchers hope the property raises the bar for future office development in the area, especially as corporate giant Bayer moves to downsize a nearby regional headquarters campus. It's that success and promise that earned the project a 2023 CoStar Impact Award, as judged by real estate professionals familiar with the market.
About the property: The four-story, 110,761 square foot building's entrances include temperature scanners that produce stickers clearing everyone registering under 100.4 degrees. High-traffic touchpoints such as door handles and elevator buttons rely on a special technology to continuously self-clean surfaces.
What the judges said: "Edge@West is my choice for commercial development of the year because it provided Class A++ office space with 90% occupancy in the middle of a time when office flight is trending, and office space vacancies are rising," wrote Alex Zvibleman, an investment broker at SVN | Infinity Commercial Group. "This Class A development will set the new standard for Class A office space and I hope inspires additional development along the Olive Corridor in Creve Coeur, especially as we see the shrinking and sell-off of the Bayer campus."
They made it happen: Larry Chapman, the chief executive of Seneca Commercial Real Estate, led the development effort. Lamar Johnson Collaborative was the architect. The property manager is Senior Real Estate Manager Kate Vierling of CBRE. Tom Ray, a CBRE first vice president, leads the leasing team.
