Reston native John W. Mason, 39, remembers when his tree was just a tiny sprig.
"It looked like a weed," he recalls, when he brought it home from school in a little pot. It was 1968 or '69 or '70, maybe Arbor Day or Earth Day, and Mason was in grade school.
"I planted the thing. My mom brought the thing back to life maybe two or three times. . . . It finally got so large we had to move it away from the house," recalled Mason, who is an auto mechanic.
The white oak tree is now more than 40 feet tall, and it's about to be moved again, to make way for a four-building office campus for Oracle Corp., the software company.
Moving and preserving the tree and 41 others scattered across the site near the Dulles Toll Road will give Oracle some ready-made greenery, at a discount, according to Kyle Warwick, who is overseeing the project at Spaulding & Slye, Oracle's development manager.
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Mason, who planted the tree, also planted the seed for the transplantation, Warwick said. One day while Oracle executives were touring the site, he stopped by and told them of the tree's history. "He kind of maybe put a bug in their bonnet," Warwick said. "That's when we did the analysis of getting new trees.
"Trees are very important to them, and they did like this large pine," Warwick said. "It's a very good-looking pine; it's very tall."
The pine will be the centerpiece of a wooded area planned as the focal point of the campus, Warwick said -- an area Oracle has dubbed "the glade," where some of the 3,500 people who will eventually work at the complex can go for picnic lunches and other breaks.
Transplanting the trees is less expensive than buying ones of the same size, Warwick said, even if Oracle could find nursery stock as large as the big pine tree. Spaulding & Slye estimates the savings at as much as $110,000.
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The rented house Mason grew up in is long gone. The tree, which stood where a parking lot is planned, was uprooted last fall in preparation for the move. Since then, the roots have been boxed and the tree has been given its own private watering system. In the next few weeks, it will be lifted to its new location by a crane.
That pleases Mason, who marvels at the radical changes that Reston has gone through in his lifetime. The tree, he said, "is the only thing where I can say, hey, that thing's been here as long as I can remember."
NEW YORK DEVELOPER RICHARD RUBEN says he plans to begin construction on a new office building in downtown Washington this summer, even if he hasn't lined up a main tenant. That would be a risky move no one has made downtown in years.
Share this articleShareHe's very close, though, to signing a major tenant that would reduce a lot of his risk: Latham & Watkins, a Los Angeles law firm with a large Washington office that has been in the market for about 100,000 square feet of space.
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Ruben confirmed that his company is negotiating with the firm to take space at Lincoln Square, the 375,000-square-foot building he plans to put at 555 11th St. NW, between E and F streets. No lease is signed yet, though.
Particularly with law firms, the difference between negotiations and a signed lease can be vast. Last year, for instance, the Washington law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld walked away from two lease negotiations in their final stages. Another law firm, McDermott, Will & Emery, spent about a year negotiating before it signed a lease allowing its future landlord to start construction on a building at 600 13th St. NW.
"You know how these things are; they can blow up," said Patrick M. Mahady, an Insignia/Barnes Morris broker representing Ruben.
"We are negotiating a lease, and we look forward to moving there," said Leonard Zax, a Latham & Watkins partner who runs the firm's real estate practice here. The firm has its offices at 1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, but there's no expansion space in that building.
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"Our lawyers have liked this location," Zax said. "Lincoln Square is the closest new building. It will move us a block closer to Metro and a block closer to the MCI Center, and it meets our exacting architectural standards."
Ruben emphasized, though, that he plans to start construction whether Latham signs or not. Speculative office buildings -- those without leases signed in advance -- have become common in Northern Virginia in the past few months. There haven't been any fully speculative buildings started in the District, though, since the real estate market fell apart in 1990.
But sizable law firms have served as anchor tenants for a few new buildings started in the past few years. Several other large law firms are in the market for D.C. office space. Because there's been little construction, there is very little top-quality space available. Many of the firms may end up staying put, but others may serve as anchors for new or renovated buildings.
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"The vacancy rate in prime Class A properties is under 5 percent now," Ruben said. "Tenants are finding it very hard to find any space at all. The first big buildings on the market will do the best."
Lincoln Square was first planned in the 1980s by a partnership led by what was then Oliver Carr Co. To get government approval, Carr agreed to include movie theaters in the building as an amenity designed to contribute to a lively downtown. The small old tenants -- places including Whitlow's restaurant, Swing's coffee shop and Vita Health Food - were moved. And then the market crashed. In 1991, the land went back to the lender; Ruben bought it in 1993 for $9.5 million.
He still plans to open the required movie theaters. He said he is negotiating with a national chain to open an art-movie theater with five to eight screens. In addition, Mahady said, other possible office tenants have expressed interest in the building, and negotiations are progressing with a New York company that wants to open two restaurants in the building -- a white-tablecloth place and an adjoining grill. CAPTION: Frank Mullen of Pavarini Construction Co. checks the 40-foot-tall tree, whose roots have been boxed while it awaits planting at the Oracle site.
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