From the Baltimore Sun:
The winner of a national competition to build an office campus for the Social Security Administration unveiled a preliminary design for the project Thursday at a meeting of Baltimore's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel.
The $200 million office campus, which will house 1,600 SSA employees in Northwest Baltimore, will be anchored by two office buildings — one five stories, the other seven stories — connected by a large glass atrium.
One of the largest and most costly projects planned for Baltimore, the campus will also include a six-story garage, cafeteria, fitness center, day care center and parking spaces for 80 bicycles. Each office building will have a "green" roof, and most employee workstations will be less than 50 feet from a window.
Planned for 11.3 acres near the Reisterstown Road Plaza Metro Station, the 538,000-square-foot project will replace the 30-year-old Metro West complex on Greene Street near downtown Baltimore.
Write very well, there are some others that resonate.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that there will be green aspects to the new building. I hope they include as much as they can--even if the short run cost is higher. In the long run it will be better for the environment and the budget.
ReplyDeleteCome on! $200 MILLION in the midst of this recession? How can this even be under consideration? I hope the next Congress axes this pronto!!!
ReplyDeleteEven as a liberal Dem, I completely agree with A#3. This is insane in the current budgetary climate. SSA is a bloated, inefficient behemoth with lots of room to redirect scarce dollars to direct service. While this expenditure would probably be defensible in a better economy, there's no way this should be approved now. The fact that it's even being brought up shows how blind the agency is to the current reality.
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