Irvine tops out Santa Clara Square office campus

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Courtesy of Irvine Company

Crews gather in Santa Clara on Tuesday to celebrate the "topping off" of Santa Clara Square, Irvine Company's under-construction office project in that city.

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Nathan Donato-Weinstein

Real Estate Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal

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Irvine Company has reached new heights at Santa Clara Square, its huge under-construction office campus off Highway 101.

No, the Newport Beach-based developer hasn't signed another monster lease. On Tuesday, hundreds of construction workers, company executives and city officials gathered at the site to celebrate a "topping off" ceremony, marking the highest steel beam being placed on the project.

Now, when it comes to construction ceremonies, groundbreakings get all the love. But as events, they're sort of forced: Usually ground has already been "broken," and sometimes the VIPs don't even dig into real dirt.

Topping-off ceremonies, however, usually have more going on. (If you're really important, you can sign the steel beam before it's installed onto the building.)

Irvine Company's milestone in Santa Clara will certainly be welcomed by its first tenant, Ericsson, which signed a 410,000-square-foot lease earlier this year for two buildings, one eight stories and the other six stories. (There's also another six-story building being constructed, bringing the total size for this phase of Santa Clara Square to 612,000 square feet.) The company will start moving in about 2,000 employees starting in late 2015.

I rounded up some fun facts about the project courtesy of Irvine Company and its general contractor, Hathaway Dinwiddie. (McCarthy Building Companies is the general contractor on the parking structure.) Then click on the photo above for a short slideshow from yesterday's event.

Office buildings

• 5,500: tons of steel in the towers
• 397,000: linear feet of conduit pipe
• 10,000: yards of concrete
• 280: workers

Nathan Donato-Weinstein covers commercial real estate and transportation for the Silicon Valley Business Journal.