SANTA CLARA — A modern tech complex under construction in Santa Clara is being developed with features designed to produce new offices compatible with the coronavirus era.
The five-story office building is expected to completed by year’s end at 3655 Kifer Road next to Lawrence Expressway in Santa Clara, according to project developer Bayview Development Group.
The project is being marketed to prospective tenants as a “Post-COVID 19 workplace,” according to a brochure being circulated by San Jose-based Cushman & Wakefield brokers Gregory Davies, Brandon Bain, Greg Bennette, and Erik Hallgrimson.
“Lawrence Station is designed with flexible workspaces and to accommodate social distancing,” said Ted McMahon, chief investment officer with Bayview Development.
The whole idea is to ensure that the office building’s design wards off too much crowding.
“We are trying to avoid bottlenecks,” McMahon said. “The design encourages single directions of travel. We will have stairwells with lights to indicate an up stairwell in the morning and a down stairwell in the afternoon.”
RMW Architecture & Interiors designed the new office building, which will total roughly 173,000 square feet and will be located a short distance from the Lawrence Station Caltrain stop in Sunnyvale.
“Silicon Valley has always been recognized as one of the most innovative places in the world, and Lawrence Station is exemplary of that innovation,” said Davies, a senior director with Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm.
Before the coronavirus erupted around the globe, modern office buildings in the Bay Area were typically designed at a spacing ratio of one employee for every 150 square feet to 200 square feet. That means a 173,000-square-foot building pre-COVID could contain from 865 to 1,155 workers.
The RMW Architecture design envisions initial spacing guidelines in Lawrence Station that, when the building opens, would be more in the range of about one worker for every 200 square feet to one per 225 square feet. That results in about 770 to 865 workers inside a building of the size and design of Lawrence Station.
The tenants will have the option as to how many employees will be working in the new building and at what spacing densities.
However, the building’s design is flexible enough that the spacing within the building could become denser, which would allow more employees to work in the building.
The building will also be able to accommodate stations to scan temperatures for people entering the facility if those are desired by a future tenant.
Bathrooms are designed to be gender-neutral and will allow people to enter and then exit along a single path of travel.
Although the building will have a new kind of design, the rents are still expected to be attractive for tenants.
“The cost of rent of a fully updated facility will look like a good value relative to the expense of not being able to bring people back into the workplace in a timely fashion,” McMahon said. “You want people to be comfortable in their work environment.”
Office tenants are becoming more interested in Lawrence Station and other Silicon Valley office projects as companies become more confident that employees can be more readily protected from the coronavirus, McMahon said.
“We had zero interest in the building from March to June,” McMahon said. “Then around late July and early August, we started to see a pretty significant uptick in tours and interest. There are some real tenant requirements out in the market right now. These indicators have me hopeful.”
