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Populous launches Atlanta office as stadium business booms

By Henry Queen – Staff Reporter, Atlanta Business Chronicle

Populous is setting up shop in Atlanta after 30 years of local projects dating back to the 1996 Olympic Games.

The global design firm recently debuted here with five employees but could rapidly grow, said Jonathan Mallie, managing director of the Americas at Populous. The office is at 505 North Angier Ave. NE, where the Industrious at Old Fourth Ward coworking space is located.

Industry veterans Rob Svedberg and Lee Pollock were recruited from TVS and Jacobs, respectively, to lead the office.

“We’ve always had an eye on the Southeast,” Maillie told Atlanta Business Chronicle in a phone interview. “But for one reason or another, we never opened an office in the Southeast despite the number of projects we had. Taking a look at the amount of work, Atlanta makes the most sense in the world. You’re talking about an international hub; an incredible, vibrant city; and a place that we’re extremely excited to be a part of.”

The company’s portfolio of work includes Truist Park; Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion; Nashville, Tennessee’s Geodis Park soccer stadium; and the renovation of Synovus Park, the new home of the Atlanta Braves’ minor-league affiliate in Columbus. Then known as HOK Sport, the company was also instrumental in planning out the venues and temporary infrastructure for the ’96 Olympics.

Ongoing stadium projects in the Southeast are Mobile Arena in Alabama and the University of South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium, which is benefiting from approximately $350 million in upgrades.

Kansas City, Missouri-based Populous is also active at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport through its subsidiary Fentress Studios, which it acquired for an undisclosed sum in June 2025. That Denver-based architecture firm is working to create a more efficient lobby and security checkpoint at the north terminal.

Airports are similar to stadiums, Maillie said, in that they draw large crowds of people and are ripe for improving the customer experience.

The people that Populous recruited to head the Atlanta office are notable. Svedberg was involved in the initial design work at LaGrange Cricket Stadium, the 10,500-seat project that broke ground late last year. Other projects of his include the expansion of New York City’s Javits Center, Mumbai’s Jio World Centre, Nashville’s new Nissan Stadium and the rooftop expansion of the Colorado Convention Center in Downtown Denver.

Pollock brings 30 years of design experience, with projects located in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.

Other team members include Jonathan Bartlett, Matt Friesen and Meredith Mejia.

Just last month, Populous opened an office in Austin, Texas. Headcount at its Los Angeles office, meanwhile, grew about tenfold since its opening, Maille said.

“We have every intention of growing the Atlanta office,” Maille said. “It can move quickly if things are going well.”

Populous has 35 offices across the world, employing more than 1,600 people.

Last year, the firm relocated its Kansas City headquarters in the Country Club Plaza area to Downtown’s 1400KC building, also home to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.

Populous also recently launched a new real estate service focused on designing mixed-use districts around sports, entertainment and civic venues. Atlanta is a hotbed for that activity, as evidenced by The Battery Atlanta surrounding Truist Park and Centennial Yards rising in the shadows of Downtown’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena.

“We refer to them as experiential districts that are developing around venues,” Maillie said. “And those venues could be sports facilities, they could be purely concert venues. They could be airports, or they could be convention centers. [It’s] almost a movement right now.”

Zaha Hadid, Adjaye, and others answer Dulles redesign open call

Daniel Jonas Roche

Requests for Information Responses (RFIs) by international architects and developers for a proposed revitalization of Washington Dulles International Airporthave landed. The submissions for the Washington, D.C. airport’s redesign follow a call from U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to redesign the main hall and control tower, designed by Eero Saarinen.

Preservationists have taken issue with the open call; members of Docomomo DCand the Art Deco Society of Washington, D.C. both submitted comments opposing the revitalization. The Airline Pilots Association, Int’l, a union, also submitted commentarywith recommendations that the project adhere to TSA and FAA regulations, as well as Department of Homeland Security guidelines.

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and Bermello Ajamil & Partners, a New York office, were among the offices who submitted proposals to Make Dulles Great Again, as the initiative has been dubbed. AECOM, Grimshaw, Adjaye Associates, RCGA+DM Architects, and ZDS Architecture & Interiors have also answered the open call.

Two infrastructure groups Amtrak recently shortlistedto redesign Penn Station, Macquarie Capital and Fengate Capital, have also responded to the open call. Here are a few of the submissions.

Option A in the proposal by Zaha Hadid Architects would create a new terminal sandwiched between the Saarinen terminal and metro station. (Courtesy U.S. DOT)

Zaha Hadid Architects and Bermello Ajamil & Partners

The proposal to Make Airports Great Again by ZHA and Bermello Ajamil & Partners cozies up to the President’s ego, showing the building named Donald J. Trump Terminal. (Senator Bernie Sanders and other elected officials earlier this month proposed legislationthat would forbid sitting U.S. presidents from naming federal buildings after themselves, so this title may be out of the question.)

The deck ZHA and Bermello Ajamil & Partners submitted is also aesthetically similar to White House Executive Orders, namely the fonts and slide colors.

The Saarinen terminal would be repurposed as a shopping mall, as part of the joint proposal. ZHA and Bermello Ajamil & Partners presented three options for terminal relocation.

Option A entails a new headhouse immediately north of the Saarinen terminal. The Saarinen terminal would be visible from an elevated pedestrian walkway connected to the metro station, however other sight lines of the Saarinen terminal would be blocked.

Option B would deliver a new headhouse south of the Saarinen Terminal, and Option C would build a new midfield terminal.

The Zaha Hadid proposal would repurpose the Saarinen terminal as a shopping mall. (Courtesy U.S. DOT)

Patrik Schumacher of ZHA is simultaneously designing the Navi Mumbai International Airport for Narendra Modi’s far-right government in India. Schumacher presented ZHA’s design for the airport, as well as his own ideological predilections, last fall at Baylor University, as reported by AN.

The Adjaye Associates and RCGA+DM proposal

Adjaye Associates is partnering with RCGA+DM on its Dulles bid. This team did not submit renderings showing a proposal. Rather, Adjaye Associates touted past projects it designed in Washington, D.C. like Frances Gregory Library and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The design approach by Adjaye Associates and RCGA+DM would emphasize “clear and intuitive terminal organization, reinforcing logical passenger movement and reducing reliance on signage,” “flexible terminal and concourse planning,” and “architecture defined by openness, daylight, and structural clarity.”

The proposal by Grimshaw would relocate terminal functions from the Saarinen-designed hall to a new building closer to the metro station. (Courtesy U.S. DOT)

The Grimshaw proposal

Grimshaw has teamed upwith Ferrovial, a self-described global operator of sustainable infrastructure. Renderings by Grimshaw show tensegral columns supporting a curved roof.

The proposal by Grimshaw would deliver a new terminal hall adjacent to the Saarinen terminal. Like the ZHA proposal, this one by Grimshaw seeks to relocate the terminal north of the Saarinen terminal, creating shorter walks from the metro station. Grimshaw also proposed repurposing the Saarinen terminal as a “commercial and social destination.”

The new terminal would have a curved roof supported by tensegral columns. (Courtesy U.S. DOT)

In the Grimshaw proposal the Saarinen terminal would be repurposed as a commercial center. (Courtesy U.S. DOT)

Grimshaw also proposed a “new airport city development” surrounding Dulles. Ferrovial likewise touted its renovations at both London’s Heathrow Airport, Barajas Airport in Madrid, and at JFK International Airport in New York, among other completed projects.

The AECOM proposal

AECOM did not share renderings in its RFI, however it did emphasize its commitment to “developing a new terminal on a greenfield or brownfield site and implementing Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority’s long‑term master plan for the airfield.”

Architecturally, AECOM envisions maintaining the Saarinen-designed terminal “for revenue‑generating uses” instead of performing terminal functions.

A construction timeline for the project wasn’t issued, however U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy did say he wants the massive infrastructure project to move “at the speed of Trump.”

3XN-designed Sydney Fish Market opens to the public

Christina Yao19 January 2026Photo by Rasmus Hjortshoj

Sydney Fish Market, which claims to be the largest fish market in the southern hemisphere and features an undulating 20,000-square-metre roof canopy, has opened its doors in “an underutilised harbour area” in Sydney.

Designed by Danish architecture studio 3XN‘s GXN arm, in association with BVN Architecture and landscape architects Aspect Studios, the market aims to become a major new civic landmark in Sydney, Australia.

“The new Sydney Fish Market is transforming an underutilised harbour area into a vibrant public realm filled with programs that attract both locals and visitors,” said Audun Opdal, senior partner at 3XN.

“The fish market uniquely blends a fully functioning commercial operation with high-quality public space, delivering an authentic market experience rooted in the context of its prime waterfront location while enhancing the entire surrounding precinct.”

According to 3XN, one of the main goals for the market upgrade was to balance the operational needs of a working market with public accessibility for locals and visitors.

“We have turned an introverted industry inside out, putting the back-of-house operations on display and making the theatrics and intense choreography of seafood trading and movement part of the public experience,” said Fred Holt, partner and Australia director at 3XN.

“The recognisable SFM blue bins with fish on ice remain at the heart of it all, but now visitors can witness an authentic, behind-the-scenes performance of one of Sydney’s biggest attractions.”

Twenty-six lifts connect the four levels of the market, which include an underwater basement, a wholesale market on the ground floor and retail and office spaces on its upper levels.

The publicly accessible wholesale market has doubled in size from its previous site to 12,200 square metres and will be occupied by fishmongers, restaurants, cafes and speciality vendors.

Next to the wholesale market is an auction hall, separated from the market by glazed walls. Here, 160 buyers will bid for fresh seafood produce in daily auctions, and visitors will be able to watch the live action of the trade without disrupting it.

Full-size glazed facades connect the market interiors to the harbour view, while allowing passersby to peek inside.

The Sydney Fish Market will be accessed from amphitheatre-style steps leading from a new plaza with seating and views across the harbour.

The most identifiable feature of the building is its 200-metre-long undulating roof canopy. Comprised of 594 timber beams and 407 aluminium cassettes, it weighs 2,500 tonnes, floating above the market hall below.

The pyramidal shape of each cassette was arranged at an angle that maximises the flow of daylight into the building, while also providing shade.

The modular nature of the roof structure, in addition to its solar panel lining and passive ventilation, will help reduce the building’s energy consumption both during construction and operation.

The roof also supports two rainwater collection and filtration locations. Half of the rainwater collected by the roof will be reused, which, combined with a wastewater treatment plant, will cut the potable water consumption of the building in half, according to 3XN.

A series of integrated systems was developed to lower the environmental impact of the building, while also meeting its stringent humidity, hygiene and operational demands.

“The ambition was always to create a building that could carry both the weight of industry and the joy of public life,” said Catherine Skinner, principal of BVN.

“The project demanded a structure capable of managing salt water and air, humidity, cold-chain logistics and heavy machinery – all while welcoming millions of visitors a year. Achieving that balance of opposing pressures shaped every decision that was made,” she continued.

“This is a deeply technical building, but it never loses sight of its civic role.”

The Sydney Fish Market forms part of the urban renewal of Blackwattle Bay and the redevelopment of Sydney’s harbour foreshore, connecting a series of the city’s iconic harbour sites, including Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

3XN GXN’s design for the new Sydney Fish Market was selected from an international design competition hosted by the New South Wales government in 2017.

Copenhagen studio 3XN was established by Kim Herforth Nielsen in 1986. It founded GXN, a strategic consultancy for the built environment, in 2007.

Together with BVN, their renovated Quay Quarter Tower in Sydney was named Best Tall Building Worldwide by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2023.

It has recently completed a sports stadium in Munich’s Olympic Park featuring rib-like aluminium facade.

The photography is by Rasmus Hijortshoj, unless stated otherwise.

Project credits:

Gross square footage: 65,000m2 GFA
Total project cost: $836 million
Client: Infrastructure NSW
Owner: Placemaking NSW
Sustainability lead: GXN
Civil engineer (general): Mott MacDonald, AT&L
Civil (roof): Aecom, CSS
Electrical: Aecom, Stowe Australia
Hydraulic: CJ Arms, Harris Page & Associates
Mechanical: Aecom, Equilibrium/Climatec (Joint Venture)
Structural: Mott Macdonald, WSP
Transportation engineer (nSFM): PTC
Transportation engineer (site surrounds): Arup
Vertical transportation: Aecom
Façade: Apex, PRISM
Logistics: S2D

Chevy Chase Library Redevelopment: New Community Center Plans Announced

After years of discussion and debate, a team has been selected to redevelop the Chevy Chase Library and community center.

On Friday, Mayor Bowser announced that Rift Valley Partners was chosen from eight proposals to transform the properties at 5601 and 5625 Connecticut Avenue NW.

Rift Valley Partners’ plan calls for a 177-unit building that will include affordable, workforce, and market-rate housing, plus a new community center and library. The proposal also features outdoor elements such as an amphitheater, an outdoor classroom, multiple sports courts, and neighborhood retail. Studios Architecture is the project’s lead designer.

Redevelopment of the civic site has been a major community issue over the past two years, with most debate focused on the scope of development and the amount of affordable housing to be provided.

An extension to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights opens

Daniel Jonas Roche

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR) was founded in Georgia’s capital city by Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s first African American woman mayor. It was designed by Phil Freelon, founder of The Freelon Group, and opened to the public in 2014. The Freelon Group was acquired by Perkins&Will that same year. Freelon died five years later, in 2019.

Today, the NCCHR houses the original manuscript of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and other Civil Rights Movement ephemera. A recent $58 million expansion to the NCCHR by Perkins&Will, Cooper Carry, and ATELIER BRÜCKNER affords the institution new and improved exhibition spaces.

NCCHR has two new wings attached to the original building that cumulatively total 28,733 square feet. Its Human Rights Gallery—dedicated to telling the stories of refugees and other oppressed peoples—has been upgraded and coalesces near a new Activation Lab, a space where visitors can design personal civic engagement plans.

The new east wing will host conferences, corporate retreats, weddings, milestone celebrations, and community gatherings. There, visitors can enjoy roof access and gaze out at the city beyond.

The extension is clad in bronze panels similar to the original volume completed in 2014 by Freelon. It tapers upward, much like the exterior glass and steel fountain by artist Larry Kirkland, featuring engraved texts by Nelson Mandela, Margaret Mead, and Dr. King.

With the extension, designed by Perkins&Will, the NCCHR can accommodate an estimated 250,000 annual visitors. Cooper Carry’s Experiential Graphic Design Studio and ATELIER BRÜCKNER were the exhibition designers.

And, indeed, the timing couldn’t be better.

Set against the backdrop of crackdowns at the Smithsonian Institution over alleged “divisive” and “improper” narratives, and the defunding of museums and schools nationwide, the NCCHR affirms it will stay the course and continue the work of its forbears, who faced similar adversity to progress.

Dr. Bernice King, the youngest child of Coretta Scott King and Dr. King, is the inaugural curator of a gallery entirely devoted to her father.

Elsewhere at NCCHR, the Without Sanctuary collection and a memorial by artist Lonnie Holley speak to Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. Another gallery exhibits Black Southern artists active in the 1980s who confronted white supremacy and built solidarity.

Jill Savitt, NCCHR president and CEO, said in a statement: “Our reopening arrives at a pivotal moment. The [NCCHR] exists to show how history speaks to the present. With these new galleries and spaces, we can offer not just stories of the past, but pathways for people to reflect, engage, and shape the future.”

“American history has never been a straight road. It has always been a dialogue between progress and pushback, between our highest ideals and forces that resist them,” Savitt added. “This expansion gives us new ways to share those stories with integrity, and to remind people that all of us can help bend the arc toward justice.”

Savitt touted the women-led design and development team. “This expansion carries the imprint of women’s leadership at every stage,” she said. “From our founder Shirley Franklin to our exhibit design, construction, and curation, women have shaped this expansion with care and vision.”

Perkins&Will recently completed another project involving Phil Freelon, the North Carolina Freedom Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. The public space features architecture inspired by civil leader and activist Lyda Moore Merrick.

In April 2026, at NCCHR, a new gallery for children under 12 years old will open to the public, which center officials call “a secret headquarters for change agents with interactive activities that build civic skills and curiosity about justice.”

Can Saudi Arabia still complete The LINE?

IN THE south west corner of the Arabian desert, an enormous trench has been formed. It may look like it was carved out by an alien presence but it is in fact evidence that one of the most ambitious construction projects in history is steaming ahead.

The 200-metre wide trench runs from the Hejaz mountains across to the Gulf of Aqaba. As if that wasn’t enough, a small portion of it contains the start of what will be the biggest set of foundations ever built. Once that concrete has set, the first vertical structures will begin to emerge.

This incredible hive of activity is in fact the construction site of The LINE, Saudi Arabia’s wildly ambitious megacity in the desert. To put it another way, the thing everybody said would or could never be built is actually being built.

Above: Satellite imagery showing construction of The LINE Image: Google.

Or is it? Because for every sign of progress, rumours swirl of scalebacks, insurmountable budget blowouts and mass lay offs. There are even rumours swirling that the whole thing has been cancelled. But what we actually know for sure is much more limited.

2026 will be make or break for The LINE. This is where deadlines need to be met and progress will be measured in height, not hype. Regardless of what you think of this mind boggling project, there’s a country with its future invested in it and a leader whose reputation is staked on it.

So, the trillion dollar question: will it ever be built?

Let’s start with the basics. The LINE is Saudi Arabia’s plan for a 170-kilometre linear city, rising to a consistent height of 500-metres. When it’s complete, it’ll form the capital city of NEOM, a vast new region in the country’s northwest, dreamed up by the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. NEOM, in turn, forms a key pillar of Vision 2030, a countrywide plan to transition the Saudi economy away from oil dependency by 2030.

Above: An early render of The Line. Image: NEOM.

How is it being built? The initial challenge for any projector of this scale is geology. The LINE crosses wildly varying terrain: hard mountain rock, soft open desert, and salty coastal plains. To build anything across such varied land, you first need a uniform, stable footing.

That’s where foundations come in. The LINE will rest on a subterranean structure known as a piled raft foundation. The “piles” are sunk deep into the earth, along the Line’s footprint. These cylinders of reinforced concrete bypass soft, unstable strata of earth and rest upon the hard bedrock below. The flat concrete “raft” lays on top of these piles and creates a flat, uniform platform to build on.

To pull this off, an automated factory is churning out 32-metre long rebar cages, used to mould and reinforce each pile. Meanwhile, drilling rigs use GPS to precisely bore the holes these rebar cages will be dropped into. A biodegradable liquid is pumped into the holes to stop them from collapsing before concrete can be poured in.

But it’s not just soft earth engineers have to grapple with. Being so close to the sea, this stretch also needs protecting from the highly saline ground water. Left untreated this could rust the steel cages and over time corrode the concrete piles.

To solve this, the world’s largest de-watering system was created. 500 wells were drilled along a stretch of The LINE, each equipped with a water pump at its base. Water is pumped out at a rate of 90,000-cubic metres per hour towards a settlement pond where the quality of the liquid is checked. From there, the water is filtered and pumped out to sea in a series of discharge pipes.

Work on the foundations for phase one is nearly complete which means the project is about to enter its next milestone: going vertical.

On a typical skyscraper, that means building the core. If you’ve ever walked past a construction site, you’ll have seen these go up, they’re not very attractive, but they’re critical to how a skyscraper works. It’s essentially the backbone of the building, and it’s formed by pouring concrete into a mould that gets pushed up by hydraulic jacks.

Above: A typical skyscraper core under construction.

But with The LINE, there’s a twist. Because it’s a city, not a building, it won’t have a 170-kilometre long core that everything sits inside. Instead, it will feature thousands of cores. These will be developed features in their own right but crucially, they will also support a series of decks.

Imagine taking Manhattan’s grid, folding it up and stacking it vertically. These decks are the city’s avenues and the cores are the streets linking each one. This is where the city will come to life. On these decks you’ll find schools, housing, transport, everything you need to make a city function.

Phase one will see 4.8-million tonnes of steel outrigger beams hoisted up to support five decks running through each. Usually on skyscrapers, the steel frame and cladding start to be added before the core is finished. That’s potentially why 2026 could be a huge year for The LINE, because it’s the first stage we can expect to see fast progress.

Above: Steelwork outrigger beams are expected to be installed on The Line’s cores

Tech firm buys 10-acre Downtown Atlanta site for potential $3.8B project

By Henry Queen – Staff Reporter, Atlanta Business Chronicle

Ten acres in the heart of Downtown Atlanta have sold to a company that envisions an eye-catching project on property that is no stranger to ambitious proposals.

Webstar Technology Group on Wednesday said it closed on the site at the corner of Ted Turner Drive SW and Whitehall Street SW in the Castleberry Hill area. The price was not disclosed, and a deed for the sale has not yet been recorded. Previous financial disclosures said the sale was valued at $33 million.

David Branch and Peyton Stinson with SSG Realty Partners represented the seller, McCall Railroad LLC. Jae Kim with CBRE represented the buyer, a subsidiary of Webstar called Forge Atlanta Asset Management. The firm has said it will sell cryptocurrency tokens to help finance the project. That would not “replace traditional financing, but rather adds a new, carefully structured opportunity,” per the company.

“Closing on the land for Forge Atlanta marks a major milestone in our vision to transform an under‑utilized industrial block into a vibrant, mixed‑use district,” Webstar Technology Group CEO Ricardo Haynes said in a statement. “By integrating traditional real estate financing with compliant blockchain technology, we are opening the door for residents, investors and communities to participate in Atlanta’s growth.”

In 2021, Urbantec Development Partners proposed a life science research hub for the site — a plan that fizzled two years later. Kim, a vice president at CBRE, led that company and still has a small stake in the new Forge Atlanta project.

Webstar, a public company, is valued at roughly a penny on OTC Markets, though it has inched up in recent days. As of Sept. 30, Webstar had $7,789 in cash and a little over $600,000 in total assets — most of which were related to this real estate project, according to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Phase 1 of Forge Atlanta, as this project has been dubbed, would include a 300‑key hotel, approximately 600 residential condominiums, and about 60,500 square feet of retail and entertainment space, according to a news release. About 1,600 parking spaces are also planned. The condos are expected to be priced from $750,000 to $2.4 million.

SSG listing — The 10-acre Downtown Atlanta site that sold on Dec. 17 is highlighted in yellow.

A September feasibility study from CBRE and Turner and Townsend said the overall plan is to build 950 hotel rooms, over 2,300 condo units, two 300,000-square-foot office buildings, two 100,000-square-foot data centers, two 40,000-square-foot conference centers, a 50,000-square-foot entertainment center and more.

Across all phases, there may be more than 8.5 million square feet of development, carrying a cost of $3.77 billion, according to the feasibility study. Ernst & Young and Develop Fulton projected the full project would create 3,000 jobs (construction and permanent) and generate an economic impact of over $7 billion, Webstar said.

It’s a staggering proposal that raises some questions. Bisnow reported in July that Webstar has left behind a trail of red flags, including nonexistent permits, collapsed land deals and unverifiable resumes.

Some elements of the project may be difficult to execute. In 2024, the city of Atlanta banned new data center development within a half-mile of MARTA stations, and the Forge property is within that distance from MARTA’s Garnett station. Condo development in Atlanta has been limited in the near two decades since the Great Recession. New office construction has plummeted since the pandemic.

Plus, Downtown Atlanta does not typically attract projects of this scale meant to make a profit. The ongoing $5 billion Centennial Yards development is supported by up to $1.9 billion in public financing, which was approved by Atlanta City Council in 2018.

Meanwhile, the nearby revitalization of historic buildings in South Downtown is made possible because of tech entrepreneur David Cummings’ investment, bolstered by proceeds from the growth and eventual sales of his former startups. The project does not need to hit a certain internal rate of return to pay investors or lenders.

“We’re not competing to get IRR returns to go sell the buildings,” SoDo Atlanta LLC CEO Jon Birdsong, Cummings’ business partner, recently told Cushman & Wakefield’s Tim Wright on the Sunbelt Developers podcast.

Develop Fulton did recently advance a public financing plan for the first phase of the Forge Atlanta project. The authority’s board of directors voted in October to approve a $223.7 million bond inducement resolution, resulting in approximately $9.7 million in tax savings over 10 years for Webstar.

A public commenter during the Develop Fulton meeting raised questions about the accuracy of Webstar’s presentation and criticized the company’s lack of public engagement.

In its Dec. 17 news release, Webstar committed to hosting community meetings, workforce development programs and cultural events starting in 2026.

According to the news release, other companies involved in the project include:

Turner & Townsend will provide development management.
Skanska has participated in preliminary discussions and pre-construction planning as a potential general contractor, subject to the negotiation.
Skyline Engineering will provide in‑house oversight and quality control.
Kimley-Horn will serve as the lead engineer.
Nelson Worldwide will lead design.

A ceremonial groundbreaking is projected for mid-2026, and construction of the first phase is expected to last up to three years.

Several options at play as DC leaders consider transit for new Commanders stadium

Homa Bash WASHINGTON

DC leaders discuss transit options for the Commanders’ new stadium.

D.C. council members and transportation leaders met for hours on Wednesday to figure out the best way to get people in and out of the new Commanders stadium.

Planning starts:

We’re just about 14 months away from the start of construction, but the conversation about transportation is well underway.

Leaders repeatedly made it clear that this transportation plan isn’t just for Commanders’ fans on eight or nine Sundays — it’s for the people who live in these neighborhoods surrounding the stadium 365 days a year.

“Even folks who were opposed to the stadium early on, they know it’s coming, so they want it to be successful,” D.C. Councilmember and Chair of the Transportation Committee Charles Allen said.

He says success means a smooth ride for fans and everyday residents.

“It’s not having tens of thousands of people driving cars here. It’s thinking about transportation. Get people on Metro,” Allen said.

“I can imagine there’s going to be a lot of cars and people trying to park, so being able to alleviate that is going to be a benefit to the community,” resident Olo Olakanmi told FOX 5.

Big picture view:

The D.C. Council hearing saw representatives from the D.C. Department of Transportation, WMATA, and the Commanders, as well as ANC commissioners in neighboring communities.

Allen emphasized that this is more than just a stadium — they’re also planning 6,000 to 8,000 new homes, 20,000 people living in a brand-new neighborhood.

As of now, there are two parking garages planned for the Commanders Stadium, expected to hold about 6,000 vehicles. But when it comes to transit, there are several possibilities at play.

Dig deeper:

Metro would need major upgrades to use the Stadium Armory stop — likely including adding an entrance, elevator, and expanding the mezzanine.

A new Metro stop could end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to build.

WMATA is getting $2 million from the District for planning. General Manager Randy Clarke said that the goal is to have 40% of game day traffic come from public transit.

But that could also include bus rapid transit lines moving people from Union Station to the stadium along the H Street corridor.

“I have confidence we’re all going to work together, and everyone has the same goal here — to make this the best possible urban sports facility and mixed-use development in the country,” Clarke said.

The plan right now is to have shovels in the ground by March 2027 and construction complete by May 2030.

“We want to make this the most transit-friendly stadium but also make sure all modes of transportation are optimized for folks to get there,” DDOT Director Sharon Kershbaum said.

So, a lot of these transit decisions need to be made fairly quickly.

From Vacancies to Homes: New York’s Conversion Trend

The Wall Street Journal | New York is undergoing a significant wave of office-to-residential conversions, driven by high office vacancy rates after the pandemic, new zoning allowances, and new tax incentives.

Developers have already transformed about 2.8 million sq m of office space over the past two decades, but the pace has accelerated sharply since 2020. More than 25 new conversions—totalling around 820,000 sq m—are now in the pipeline, with Midtown emerging as the centre of activity as large 1980s and 1990s office buildings lose tenants and value.

Architectural firms are overcoming the deep, outdated floorplates of these towers by carving out notches for light and air, reconfiguring floors, and reorganising bathrooms and bedrooms to meet modern residential building codes.

A prominent example is the 35-storey tower at 750 Third Avenue, which is approximately 76,000 sq m, where developers removed more than 2,250 sq m across 11 floors to create a light-bringing notch, introduced a winter garden, and redesigned levels to fit apartments—38 on the sixth floor alone. Citywide, conversions have shifted dramatically toward Midtown, reflecting a structural transition as New York repurposes obsolete office stock into much-needed housing.

This AI convention center in China was designed by AI. Kind of

Oscar Holland

A dark, diamond-like structure has risen on the banks of Shanghai’s Huangpu River. Glittering by day and inky black after sunset, its glass facade evokes the angled geometry of a gemstone. But this sculptural form is neither rooted in nature nor even entirely designed by humans.

It is — in part, at least — the work of artificial intelligence.

The West Bund Convention Center is a new showpiece venue in a once-industrial Shanghai district now central to China’s push for AI supremacy. The West Bund neighborhood already houses the aptly named AI Tower skyscraper and a 13-million-square-foot “AI Valley” expected to one day house tech enterprises worth a combined $14 billion.

So, when American architecture practice Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) was commissioned to design a home there for the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference, one of the industry’s biggest events, it seemed only fitting to use AI.

“We had the vision to actually use artificial intelligence as a primary driver for the expression of the building,” said design partner Scott Duncan on a video call from Chicago, where the firm is headquartered. The venue hosted its first AI conference, while still under construction, in July and was completed in October.

Some of the hundreds of AI-generated proposals, each offering a subtly different solution to the design objectives laid out by the building's architects.

For both practical and ethical reasons, the architecture sector has, thus far, been conservative about AI-powered design. But SOM — which has designed some of China’s best-known skyscrapers, including the pagoda-inspired Jin Mao Tower, also in Shanghai — is among a growing number of practices using the technology to save time, reduce waste and solve complex design problems.

Instead of giving AI full creative license, the architects assign it very specific tasks, outlining fixed parameters and then leaving it to produce hundreds, even thousands, of possible solutions.

For the West Bund Convention Center’s facade, for example, the design team began by defining constraints that acted as “rules” for the AI — everything from site dimensions to the height of meeting rooms. The architects then developed algorithms around six key objectives: improving occupants’ views, maximizing floor space and increasing the amount of sunlight hitting the facade, among others.

Such goals can (and often do) conflict with one another. Changing the angle of a glass panel, for instance, might improve views but also reduce sun exposure. But through a process called “multi-objective optimization,” AI can analyze — to an almost infinite degree — the best possible compromises. “It’s like algebra,” said Duncan. “You have multiple equations and multiple unknowns, and you can solve for them all at once.”

Leaving the algorithms to “think” overnight, the SOM architects awoke to hundreds of subtly different proposals, each one scored against their objectives. Duncan estimates they were presented with more than 800 iterations. “And we could have generated millions, if we had an unlimited time schedule.”

Narrowing down the options and picking a winner still required a human eye. After all, the designers wanted an “aesthetically pleasing” design, despite their many functional requirements, the architect explained.

“The algorithm doesn’t know what beauty is,” Scott Duncan on the design process

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“We selected the one we thought was most beautiful and looked the most elegant in its setting. And that’s something that really can’t be automated,” he said, arguing that AI’s role will not replace human creativity.

“The violin doesn’t play itself,” he said, adding: “The algorithm doesn’t know what beauty is.”