Project Profile: Prologis Office Fitout

Scope of work: Full interior renovation of 5,000 sf space

BC&E Member companies involved: Partner Contracting, Bunting Door & Hardware, Johnson Controls

The current quest by American employers to lure workers back to office buildings is creating a new and elaborate category of renovation projects.

When the commercial real estate company, Prologis, launched a nationwide campaign to renovate their own offices, Partner Contracting landed the contract to fit out a 5,000-square-foot office in Columbia.

“The head of Prologis locally said she wanted a space that would bring people back to the office, a really attractive space they would want to come to,” said David Jaques, president of Partner Contracting. “The design they created was amazing. It makes you feel like you are in a city center, high-rise building even though you are in Columbia.”

The newly completed offices feature a rich mixture of brick walls, hardwood floors, cloud and exposed ceilings, myriad hanging light fixtures, full-wall images of Baltimore and Washington, and etched glass that stretches nearly from floor to ceiling. The array of casual, modern workspaces includes a lounge with a neon Natty Boh sign, a coffee bar with intricate orange tile, a recreation area with a golf simulator (that also plays football, baseball and hockey) and a line of diner-style booths snugged in below a dark, coved ceiling.

“There’s one hallway that’s really a curved tunnel. It’s rare to see something like that in an office space, but it’s pretty cool,” Jaques said. “It was also tricky to build. The normal material we would have used had an eight-week lead time, which would have put us well past scheduled completion. So our team in the field came up with creative solutions that involved custom cutting studs and drywall.”

And, of course, there is the moss wall.

In the foyer, an irregularly shaped expanse of live plants appears to grow out from the surface of two brick walls. Crews installed plywood behind the brickwork to support the weight of the plants and moisture-resistant drywall to prevent mold or water damage, then followed intricate, brick-by-brick instructions of how to complete the masonry to create the irregular opening for the plants.

The unusual level of detail in the design meant that “there were 20-plus subcontractors on that project – some local, some national, some very specialized,” Jaques said.

Frequent, detailed communication among all project partners was key to completing the project to spec and on schedule, especially in the midst of COVID-related supply chain disruptions, Jaques said. “It turned out beautifully. The impact of the coordination shows in the details.”