Affirmative Investments, CIM Group, Hollywood Community Housing Corp., and Pearl Properties are among the developers to complete multifamily projects in late 2019. Here are eight noteworthy projects collected by the editors of Multifamily Design+Construction magazine:
1. PREFABRICATION SAVES VALUABLE TIME ON DENVER HIGH-RISE
Using five different prefabrication components, a team led by The Weitz Company (GC) completed SOVA, a 12-story, 211-unit rental high-rise in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood, in less than 24 months. A 3D BIM model guided MDA Construction’s installation of the 10X20-foot metal framing walls and prefab MEP systems from South Valley Prefab and interior metal framing from Infinity. The LEED Silver complex has six EV charging stations, a DIY bike and ski repair shop, storage for 95 bicycles, a paw spa, and a 12th-floor indoor sky lounge and sky deck. Also on the team for developer McWhinney: Craine Architects (designer); KL&A (SE); and ME Group (mechanical engineer). PHOTO: JAMES RAY SPAHN
2. AWARD-WINNING AFFORDABLE RENTALS IN ST. PAUL
An intriguing paint can installation marks the community room at Union Flats, 217 affordable rentals in St. Paul, Minn., designed by BKV Architects. GC Weis Builders had to remediate a contaminated four-acre site to build the U-shaped structure near the Twin Cities’ light-rail line. Owner/manager Dominium won a Vanguard Award from the National Affordable Housing Management Association for the $67 million project. PHOTO: ALEX CARROL
3. LUXURY COMMUNITY OFFERS HARBORSIDE LIVING IN OXNARD
SVA Architects designed The Reserve at Seabridge, 75 live-work units on a 5.6-acre marina-facing site in the Channel Islands Harbor at Oxnard, Calif., 60 miles west of Los Angeles. The luxury apartment complex, part of the master-planned Seabridge community, has a 6,300-sf recreation center and fitness facility, swimming pool, spa, and sundeck. The owner/builder was VK Builders Corp. LJP Construction Services was waterproofing consultant. PHOTO: COURTESY SVA ARCHITECTS
4. PHILADELPHIA DEVELOPER ADDS LARGER APARTMENTS
Developer Pearl Properties reduced the number of units in its luxury high-rise, The Harper, from 200 to 167 to add more 1,600 to 1,800-sf residences for families. The 280,000-sf, 24-story rental community, the work of DAS Architects, Harman Group (SE), and Wellcraft Construction Company (GC), is a block away from Philadelphia’s historic Rittenhouse Square. Amenities include co-working lounges, an indoor basketball court, a heated soaking pool, a 12,200-sf rooftop park, and a 24th-floor club room and sky deck. PHOTO: BARRY HALKIN
5. PUEBLO HOUSE MOVED TO MAKE WAY FOR FAMILY HOUSING
To make room on a tight three-quarter-acre site in East Hollywood for the Coronel Apartments, KFA Architects and Westport Construction moved a protected 1920s Pueblo house across the street and renovated it into two apartments and a community room. Nonprofit developer Hollywood Community Housing Corp. replaced 22 units of substandard REAP housing with 18 three-bedroom, 24 two-bedroom, and 12 one-bedroom apartments at rents of $488 to $1,354/month. The four-story LEED Platinum–targeted project is on the Metro Red Line and has a walk score of 87. PHOTO: KFA ARCHITECTURE
6. MS PATIENTS GET A NEW HOME IN BOSTON
Adults with advanced multiple sclerosis are the primary occupants of Boston’s Harmon Apartments, designed by local architecture firm DiMella Shaffer. The 26 accessible one-bedroom and 10 two-bedroom units were developed by The Boston Home, which has served MS patients since 1881, and Affirmative Investments. Eight units were set aside for those with income levels at or below 30% of AMI; 24 for those at or below 60% of AMI; six are market rate. On-site services include wellness and fitness programs, caregiver training, wheelchair seating and positioning, and outpatient rehabilitation. PHOTO: ROBERT BENSON PHOTOGRAPHY
7. HIGH-RISE TOWER LOOKS OUT ON CHICAGO’S MUSEUM CAMPUS
Walsh Construction completed The Paragon, a 47-story rental tower in Chicago’s South Loop for Murphy Development Group and CIM Group. The 500 units have views of the city’s Museum Campus and Grant Park. SCB was the architect. Mary Cook Associates designed the models for the studio, convertible, and one- and two-bedroom apartments. PHOTO: Mary Cook Associates
8. ADJMI’S DUMBO LUXURY CONDOS COME WITH A PRIVATE PARK
Architect Morris Adjmi’s twin 21-story towers, Front & York, bring “full-service, resort-style” living to Brooklyn’s DUMBO (“down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass”) neighborhood. The one- to four-bedroom condominiums are fitted with Adjmi-styled Italian cabinetry, Caldia stone countertops, Waterworks fittings, and Gaggenau appliances. Private chef’s kitchens, teen lounges, children’s playrooms, and a 77,000-sf Life Time fitness center, plus a private park designed by Michael Van Valkenburg Associates, add to the package. New Line Structures was the CM for co-owner/developers CIM Group and LIVWRK. Prices start at $950,000. RENDERING: WILLIAMS NEW YORK
Related Stories
| Mar 22, 2011
Mayor Bloomberg unveils plans for New York City’s largest new affordable housing complex since the ’70s
Plans for Hunter’s Point South, the largest new affordable housing complex to be built in New York City since the 1970s, include new residences for 5,000 families, with more than 900 in this first phase. A development team consisting of Phipps Houses, Related Companies, and Monadnock Construction has been selected to build the residential portion of the first phase of the Queens waterfront complex, which includes two mixed-use buildings comprising more than 900 housing units and roughly 20,000 square feet of new retail space.
| Mar 17, 2011
Perkins Eastman launches The Green House prototype design package
Design and architecture firm Perkins Eastman is pleased to join The Green House project and NCB Capital Impact in announcing the launch of The Green House Prototype Design Package. The Prototype will help providers develop small home senior living communities with greater efficiency and cost savings—all to the standards of care developed by The Green House project.
| Mar 11, 2011
Renovation energizes retirement community in Massachusetts
The 12-year-old Edgewood Retirement Community in Andover, Mass., underwent a major 40,000-sf expansion and renovation that added 60 patient care beds in the long-term care unit, a new 17,000-sf, 40-bed cognitive impairment unit, and an 80-seat informal dining bistro.
| Mar 11, 2011
Mixed-income retirement community in Maryland based on holistic care
The Green House Residences at Stadium Place in Waverly, Md., is a five-story, 40,600-sf, mixed-income retirement community based on a holistic continuum of care concept developed by Dr. Bill Thomas. Each of the four residential floors houses a self-contained home for 12 residents that includes 12 bedrooms/baths organized around a common living/social area called the “hearth,” which includes a kitchen, living room with fireplace, and dining area.
| Mar 11, 2011
Texas A&M mixed-use community will focus on green living
HOK, Realty Appreciation, and Texas A&M University are working on the Urban Living Laboratory, a 1.2-million-sf mixed-use project owned by the university. The five-phase, live-work-play project will include offices, retail, multifamily apartments, and two hotels.
| Mar 1, 2011
How to make rentals more attractive as the American dream evolves, adapts
Roger K. Lewis, architect and professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, writes in the Washington Post about the rising market demand for rental housing and how Building Teams can make these properties a desirable choice for consumer, not just an economically prudent and necessary one.
| Feb 15, 2011
New Orleans' rebuilt public housing architecture gets mixed reviews
The architecture of New Orleans’ new public housing is awash with optimism about how urban-design will improve residents' lives—but the changes are based on the idealism of an earlier era that’s being erased and revised.
| Feb 11, 2011
Chicago high-rise mixes condos with classrooms for Art Institute students
The Legacy at Millennium Park is a 72-story, mixed-use complex that rises high above Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The glass tower, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, is mostly residential, but also includes 41,000 sf of classroom space for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and another 7,400 sf of retail space. The building’s 355 one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom condominiums range from 875 sf to 9,300 sf, and there are seven levels of parking. Sky patios on the 15th, 42nd, and 60th floors give owners outdoor access and views of Lake Michigan.
| Feb 11, 2011
Sustainable community center to serve Angelinos in need
Harbor Interfaith Services, a nonprofit serving the homeless and working poor in the Harbor Area and South Bay communities of Los Angeles, engaged Withee Malcolm Architects to design a new 15,000-sf family resource center. The architects, who are working pro bono for the initial phase, created a family-centered design that consolidates all programs into a single building. The new three-story space will house a resource center, food pantry, nursery and pre-school, and administrative offices, plus indoor and outdoor play spaces and underground parking. The building’s scale and setbacks will help it blend with its residential neighbors, while its low-flow fixtures, low-VOC and recycled materials, and energy-efficient mechanical equipment and appliances will help it earn LEED certification.
| Feb 11, 2011
Apartment complex caters to University of Minnesota students
Twin Cities firm Elness Swenson Graham Architects designed the new Stadium Village Flats, in the University of Minnesota’s East Bank Campus, with students in mind. The $30 million, six-story residential/retail complex will include 120 furnished apartments with fitness rooms and lounges on each floor. More than 5,000 sf of first-floor retail space and two levels of below-ground parking will complete the complex. Opus AE Group Inc., based in Minneapolis, will provide structural engineering services.
