All on the job agree: The most challenging and striking design feature of the $185-million central library replacement under construction in San Diego is its steel lattice dome. The shape, which will top the eighth-floor reading room of the nine-story library, is designed to be a symbol for the city as well as a working part of the building's shading system, says Rob Wellington Quigley, the local design architect for the project. A modern interpretation of the classic shape, the dome is designed to function on both an emotional and practical level, says Quigley. “The dome is not glass, but
The $452-million Lodi Energy Center (LEC) natural gas power plant project is progressing well and is on track for completion in June 2012, according to sources at the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA), a joint‐action agency serving public power entities in Northern and Central California. The project, which is under construction on 4.4 acres of land in Lodi, will generate 280 megawatts of power once complete.“We’ve experienced a few challenges with suppliers, but we are working around those,” said Ed Warner, project manager, NCPA. “We are 50 percent done with construction and over 70 percent complete with the overall project,
California’s first true public-private partnership wastewater treatment plant in Santa Paula, Ventura County, will accept a P3 innovation award from the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships in an awards banquet in Tampa Oct. 4. The project was put together in 2008 by the city of Santa Paula and a joint venture Santa Paula Water LLC, which is comprised of PERC Water Corp., Costa Mesa, and Alinda Capital Partners, Greenwich, Conn. Layton Construction, Irvine, was the prime subcontractor and PACE Engineering, Redding, was the engineer of record.Santa Paula’s original wastewater treatment facility, built in 1939, was out of compliance and needed
One of the last un-built parcels of land in Old Pasadena – a surface parking lot – will soon serve as the site of a mixed-use development called One Green Street. The city last week approved the project, which is scheduled to break ground in January. Bernards CM is providing pre-construction services at present and a general contractor will be named in the next few months, according to a spokesman.Gonzalez Goodale Architects is the designer and M&D Properties is the owner.Located at the corner of South Fair Oaks and West Green Street, the three-story, 45,000-square-foot development will consist of a
A report by the Urban Land Institute’s Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use indicated that the goals of building an entertainment and sports complex and intermodal transit facilities at Sacramento’s Railyards redevelopment site are “achievable and desirable,” according to city officials. Specifically, the report indicates that the intermodal transit facilities and sports complex can be accommodated in the southern section of the Sacramento Railyards in a "symbiotic way that creates public space, provides connectivity and achieves synergies with surrounding districts,” according to the interdisciplinary panel of urban planning and development experts assembled by the ULI Rose Center.The panel confirmed
HNTB last week unveiled new designs and models of the proposed San Francisco 49ers stadium in Santa Clara. Costing an estimated $987 million, the new 68,500-seat stadium will “create the sense of something special,” says architect Fernando Vasquez of HNTB, the project’s designer. HNTB says the new stadium project is designed with many sustainable elements and will be expandable to host premier events such as the Super Bowl. The stadium is also being designed to accommodate Major League Soccer and World Cup eventsVasquez adds that the design includes tributes to California architecture and themes, including seat colors representing three different
Los Angeles developer Wood Partners is moving ahead with the type of construction project that has virtually disappeared in the past few years – a luxury apartment community. General contractor WP West Builders LP, Los Angeles, will break ground on the $75-million Warner Park project in Warner Center during the week of Aug. 15. Construction time is estimated at 22 months with the first units to be available in early 2013.The designer of the project is Architects Orange, Orange.The four-acre site sits adjacent to Warner Center, a thriving mixed-use hub that is home to more than 50,000 jobs and millions
It may not be back to business as usual in the California construction industry—due to lingering economic uncertainties and owners' resulting reluctance to proceed with projects—but major contractors see some silver linings in upcoming project opportunities, especially in health care, transportation and other infrastructure. In this year's Top Contractors ranking, total revenue at the top 10 firms dropped 10.3% to $8.1 billion from $9.1 billion a year ago. But many contractors anticipated the slowdown and diversified into new market sectors and that helped stem the recessionary tide. Moreover, the growth of technology firms in the San Francisco Bay Area has
The first of 10 projects of Caltrans’ mandated Design-Build Demonstration Program – the State Highway 99 Chowchilla Rehabilitation Project in Madera Co. – was awarded last week to Granite Construction Co. Construction on the $37-million project is planned to begin this month and is estimated for completion by December 2012. The project will repair nearly 4 mi of Highway 99 in both directions in Chowchilla from the South Madera Overcrossing to the Avenue 16 Overcrossing. Existing guardrail, lights, signs, and drainage systems within the project limits will also be upgraded or repaired, as needed.With the design-build construction method, Caltrans expects
If all goes according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan, in 59 hours starting 7 p.m. Friday, July 15, Los Angeles will avoid “Carmageddon.” All of Southern California, it seems, is bracing for the shutdown of a 10-mile section of Interstate 405 so that one of its overpasses, the Mulholland Drive Bridge, can be partially demolished as part of a $1-billion project to upgrade the I-405 between Interstate 10 and U.S. 101.The media-saturated region dubbed the weekend closure “Carmageddon” in reference to the end of Southern California driving as we know it. More than 300,000 vehicles traverse that section of