Vornado Realty Trust

The age of the structures and location in the heart of the Downtown Crossing shopping district through which 100,000 people traipse daily present "exciting challenges," Suffolk CEO John Fish acknowledges, but insists his firm is up to the task. "I am confident our pre-construction professionals have the expertise to quickly move this project into the construction phase," says Fish, whose company has already done select demolition. The pre-construction group will now assess materials and processes, and conduct site analysis to identify issues and finalize cost assumptions.

The multi-faceted project is one of several buildings featuring class A office space that are angling to hit downtown Boston by the end of the decade by moving forward immediately. Anticipating a groundbreaking by early summer, August 2010 is the target for completion of the Filene's expansion. Near South Station, the Russia Wharf redevelopment will yield 520,000 sf of office space, while Lincoln Property Co. is scrambling to launch Two Financial Center, a 12-story, 220,000-sf office building. The downtown sector has seen more than one million sf of office space added this decade at One Lincoln St. and 33 Arch St., Boston's newest office tower, a 32-story, 600,000-sf building located just steps from Filene's. Meredith & Grew reports a 10.4% vacancy rate for Boston's office market in the first quarter, a survey tracking 56.3 million sf of space.

Besides a 38-story tower topped by the office space, the Filene's renovation will include residential condominiums, a hotel, 5.5 levels of below-grade parking and the return of Filene's Basement, the iconic shopping store of Downtown Crossing. The store will be shuttered for a portion of the construction process. Vornado and Gale are proceeding quickly, having only closed on the asset in late January, paying an estimated $100 million.