VornadoRealty Trust

The age of the structures and location in the heart of theDowntown Crossing shopping district through which 100,000 peopletraipse daily present "exciting challenges," Suffolk CEO John Fishacknowledges, but insists his firm is up to the task. "I amconfident our pre-construction professionals have the expertise toquickly move this project into the construction phase," says Fish,whose company has already done select demolition. Thepre-construction group will now assess materials and processes, andconduct site analysis to identify issues and finalize costassumptions.

The multi-faceted project is one of several buildings featuringclass A office space that are angling to hit downtown Boston by theend of the decade by moving forward immediately. Anticipating agroundbreaking by early summer, August 2010 is the target forcompletion of the Filene's expansion. Near South Station, theRussiaWharf redevelopment will yield 520,000 sf of office space,while Lincoln Property Co. is scrambling to launch Two FinancialCenter, a 12-story, 220,000-sf office building. The downtown sectorhas seen more than one million sf of office space added this decadeat One Lincoln St. and 33 Arch St., Boston's newest office tower, a32-story, 600,000-sf building located just steps from Filene's.Meredith & Grew reports a 10.4% vacancy rate for Boston'soffice market in the first quarter, a survey tracking 56.3 millionsf of space.