Built-To-Suit

The College of Medicine at Tower Health’s four-story campus building includes state-of-the-art medical education technology, and its lecture halls, classrooms, and common spaces are built to promote collaborative work. The facility also has a fitness center, library, lounges, game room, and café space to enhance student wellness.

Students will work together to connect basic science concepts to medical cases, symptoms, and disease presentation in the first-floor bioskills laboratory, and practice crucial skills in the adjacent anatomy laboratory.

On the upper floors, future physicians will hone their diagnostic and interpersonal communication techniques in simulated hospital settings. Students practice medical interviewing, physical exams and patient counseling with standardized patients, who are trained to portray scenarios and specific medical conditions.

In 2003 Wyeth called upon Equus Development (then BPG Development Co) to solve a critical shortage of office space within a crucial time frame. We are proud to have designed, developed and delivered 183,363 square feet of class A Build-to-Suit space for Wyeth in a period of only twelve months. By offering the ability to deliver high-quality facilities at Wyeth’s Headquarters Campus in Collegeville, PA, Equus provided Wyeth with the flexibility to expand and contract its operations as business needs require. By leasing office space as opposed to developing and owning it directly, Wyeth achieved its expansion requirements while avoiding any impact on capital reserves which remained available for use in its core business.

BPG Development (now Equus Development Co) delivered Highview I and II, totaling 183,363 square feet, to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals under a ten year build-to-suit lease transaction during the second quarter 2003. The three and four story Class A office buildings are situated within Providence Corporate Center near the intersection of Route 29 and 422 in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Construction was completed in just nine months and within one year of lease execution despite the unusually harsh winter conditions and compressed timeframe. The firm fostered an environment for team work by managing the flow of information between the architect, engineer, general contractor and Wyeth’s project manager and created an atmosphere in which critical decisions could be made quickly and efficiently. In order to streamline the construction, BPG Development preordered steel and brick panel fabrication for the building’s envelope. The brick panels were manufactured at the same time as the structural steel so that both were ready for delivery to the site within three months of when construction commenced in July 2002. In April 2003, Highview I, a three-story 78,000 square foot building, was delivered to Wyeth. Delivery of Highivew II, a four-story 105,000 square foot building, followed in June. Reflecting on the project, Patrick Branin, assistant vice president of real estate for Wyeth, commented, “This was a fast track project that required maximum coordination and efficiency of execution between Wyeth and BPG to meet the target date for occupancy. It was a pleasure to work with Steve Spaeder and his experienced team of development professionals throughout the whole process inclusive of lease negotiation, base building design revisions to accommodate Wyeth, and tenant fit-out design and construction. BPG/ Equus delivered two Class-A quality buildings that became an integral part of the Wyeth Pharmaceuticals headquarters site in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.”

Artifacts from Ellis Preserve’s history along with past and current Equus development projects have been artfully displayed throughout the building in a descriptive motif. Each artifact is accompanied by a story panel to explain its significance.

Constructed largely of reclaimed wood and other materials from Equus’ Berkshire Knitting Mills project in Wyomissing PA, the Equus Headquarters is a model example of how Sustainability blends with new construction. Equipped with full LED lighting and high efficiency HVAC systems, the building minimizes carbon emissions.

In moving to Ellis Preserve, Equus sought for its staff of real estate professionals to experience first-hand the unique Ellis Preserve Live-Work-Play environment and its abundant package of amenities.  Ellis Preserve is Equus’ “Real Estate Laboratory” where every discipline in real estate — Historic Preservation, new development of office, retail, hotel, and residential projects, repositioning of functionally obsolete office, lab and industrial buildings and preservation of open space is practiced.