A new eight story office building in Charlottesville is celebrating a construction milestone.
The final beam was placed on Apex Plaza during ceremony Wednesday, May 19. The building is the first large-scale mass timber project in Virginia, and one of only a handful in the United States .
“The new technology to the United States of bringing cross laminated timber- CLT, as its known – and bringing a project of this size and magnitude to Charlottesville… It is a big day,” Hourigan Group CEO Mark Hourigan said.
Apex Clean Energy CEO Mark Goodwin says the Hourigan Group has been working on the building for years and it will feature solar panels, energy storage, and more.
“A building that has over 300 kilowatts of solar power on it. What that will do is enable Apex to be net zero in this office, so we will generate as much power as we use in the building,” Goodwin said. “What we want to do with a building like this is show how a company like ours, which works on the utility side of the economy, how we can help show an example of transitioning in other sectors.”
The building aims to solve one challenge for Apex Clean Energy: getting everyone under one roof.
“We want our offices to be on the Downtown Mall, but it’s been a challenge to get us all under one building. The City of Charlottesville was very supportive of us putting this building in and it means a lot,” Goodwin said.
Apex Plaza has already brought jobs to Charlottesville with nearly 150 people working on it daily, but the economic impact does not stop there.
“Those people spend money here. They’re in the restaurants. In many cases lodging here. It’s a great boom to the area and those jobs will stay here. Right now that building is 90% pre-leased so it will be filled when we open the doors,” Hourigan said.
Apex Plaza building is set to open December 2021.
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