According to Daniel Eum, president of SRA, “Our new state-of-the-art R&D center will provide an outstanding environment to support our plans for strategic growth and attracting the very best employees. This expansion, in addition to Samsung Semiconductor Inc.'s new San Jose campus, builds upon Samsung's 35-year history in the Bay Area and reinforces our commitment to the valley.”

“What we will deliver for our tenant Samsung R&D Institute America is cutting-edge environmental sustainability for their headquarters,” says Michael Covarrubias, chairman and CEO of TMG Partners, “This environment will be the best and highest complement to the state-of-the-art research and development conducted by Samsung.”

John Inks, the Mayor of Mountain View welcomed Samsung to the City at the groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday: “The City of Mountain View is proud to be the home to a number of world's technology companies, including Samsung. We are pleased to welcome their new headquarters campus to Mountain View. The Samsung campus will be the first LEED Platinum campus constructed in Mountain View and will set a high standard of sustainability.”

The design will utilize sustainable features such as natural day-lighting, sun-shading, photovoltaic panels, high-efficiency glass and a five-zone thermodynamic heating and cooling system that reduces and eliminates re-heat energy and increases system efficiency. The project provides for up to a 20% reduction in auto trips; a reduction of water use by up to 30%; allocating up to 49% of site area for park-like open space; reducing waste by up to 50%; and using less overall energy than the 118,000 square foot, four-building industrial campus that previously occupied the site. The site is within 2,000 feet of the VTA light rail and will offer bicycle storage, an onsite bike fleet and changing rooms. The project is founding a non-profit privately funded Transportation Management Association to run the project shuttle system to and from the campus to Downtown Mountain View.

"There are a number of companies in Mountain View that provide shuttles to the train, but we are taking it one step further,” says TMG Partners project manager, Ken Dupee. “As part of our community benefit, we are forming a Transportation Management Association with other Mountain View employers, a non-profit public benefit corporation to address traffic issues in Mountain View.”

The design and construction team includes Studios Architecture as lead project architect, the Guzzardo Partnership as landscape designer, and Devcon Construction as general contractor.

An Unless you have been living under a rock, anyone who lives or works in the San Francisco Bay Area recognizes that the development of new commercial real estate projects is booming, says Michael Polentz, co-chair of the real estate and land use practice group at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. Construction starts in Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco Counties alone have risen from $606 million in 2011 to $742 million in 2012, with projections of close to $1 billion for 2013, he previously said.

“Although there are many theories for why commercial development has exploded in the region, there is no doubt that one of the primary driving forces is the increase in pending and planned infrastructure projects,” he says.

According to Infrastructure 2013: Global Priorities, Global Insights, a joint report from the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young, infrastructure is the “lifeblood of prosperity and economic confidence in the 21st century.”

Howard Roth, Ernst & Young's Global Real Estate Leader, noted that “[t]he US has a continuing substantial need to upgrade its infrastructure to keep up with global competitors. There is a clear and powerful linkage between investments in infrastructure and the future growth, real estate development and vibrancy of cities and regions. Capitalizing on these connections requires public leadership and investment as well as private initiative and capital.”