Liberty Property Trust announced that it has completed the construction of its 155,000 square foot Class A office building, located at 1850 W. Rio Salado Parkway in Tempe. The building opening marks Liberty’s first of up to potentially 11 buildings planned at Liberty Center at Rio Salado, and officially launches the innovative mixed-use business park.
Liberty also welcomes WageWorks, the first tenant in the brand new state-of-the art sustainable building. WageWorks is occupying the first floor of the building and the second floor of approximately 78,000 square feet is still available for lease.
“This has been a very exciting project for us and we have been looking forward to the official opening of Liberty Center at Rio Salado,” said John DiVall, senior vice president and city manager for Liberty’s Arizona region. “We have long believed that the live-work-play concept of the park will be of tremendous appeal to prospective companies looking to enhance their employees overall work environment.”
The building features energy-efficient glazing, a minimum ten-foot ceiling height, an elegant open lobby, teak-stone throughout the interior and exterior of the building, state-of-the-art telecommunications and fiber optics, and six-per-1,000 parking. Twenty percent of the building’s construction materials consist of recycled content, including the concrete, steel, carpet, ceiling tiles and similar materials. The building also features a 10kw solar panel array.
The architect for the building is RSP Architects, the general contractor is Wespac Construction, and the civil
engineer is Wood/Patel.
In addition to the building’s official opening, now on display at the entrance to the park on Rio Salado Parkway are three unique Agave Torch sculptures, ranging in size from 13’, 15’ and 17’, which were designed and created by local artist and well-known sculptor Kevin S. Berry. The base of each torch is reminiscent of saguaro cacti and the baskets of each torch pay tribute to the Hohokam Indian tribe. The blue-green glass in the base of each torch represents the water from the Salt River on which the project is located and all three sculptures are internally illuminated at night.
The company celebrated the opening of its building at a broker event held last night. In attendance at the event were top brokers from the area, in addition to several local representatives from the city including Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell and Tempe City Council members Robin Arredondo-Savage, Kolby Granville and Corey Woods. Liberty Property Trust’s John DiVall, senior vice president and city manager, Megan Creecy-Herman, senior director of leasing and development, and Jay Ohanesian, senior project manager were joined by Jim Lutz, senior vice president of development for Liberty Property Trust (nationally) and the rest of the Arizona Liberty Property Trust team at the evening’s event.
