Roux Blog

On the clear crisp morning of Wednesday, December 12th, the ULI group met at Building 103 in the Presidio of San Francisco, located next door to the Walt Disney Family Museum and in the famous Montgomery Street army barracks. The group spent some time getting to know each other over coffee and pastries. Promptly at 8:30am, our presenters began with a historic overview of the Montgomery Street barracks. The barracks were originally built in 1895 to house soldiers and have since been changed to accommodate several different uses.

Here we begin our tour of the retrofit and renovation of the building for its newest use as the new Presidio Trust headquarters. Jeff Gherardini from Plant Construction Company, Paul Littler and Zander Sivyer from Holmes Culley, and Robert Wallace from the Presidio Trust talked to the group about the retrofit process. We watched slides of the construction which showed the use of fiber-reinforced polymers instead of the traditional concrete shear walls or steel frames, the construction highlight of building 103. This was applied over main posts in order not to lose square footage and era detailing, while reinforcing the buildings structure for earthquake protection. The result is a LEED-Gold certification and a Preservation Design Award from the California Preservation Foundation.

After talks about the cost of the project (a cool $ 10 Million) and of the different retrofits and uses of building 103 compared to the other office buildings and the Walt Disney Family Museum, the ULI group split into two tour groups lead by Presidio’s Robert Wallace and by Bruce Laynon. We were shown the preserved and exposed support beams, the beautifully integrated modern glass conference room and the era refurbished stair case and bannisters. The entrance was magnificent with modern light fixtures. The attics, which were never used in the past, are now extra office spaces with original exposed support beams. It’s amazing what a good artistic eye can bring to a building over 100 years old.

We ended the tour on the building’s front porch where Robert Wallace showed us the Main Parade grounds and the future vision of the Presidio to be mixed use, historically preserved buildings.

Authored by: Sabrina Ma, Roux Associates, Inc., San Francisco

Authored by: Sabrina Ma, Roux Associates, Inc., San Francisco

ULI (Urban Land Institute; San Francisco) provided an insightful and interesting tour to the SF Peninsula members at the Sunnyvale Fusion Homes built by O’Brien Homes. Dennis O’Brien, president and founder of O’Brien Homes, provided a historical overview of the site, starting with the remediation for pesticide from the farm that was once on the land. He then provided an overview of the complexities of taking over a partly developed residential property where John Laing Homes, Bank of America, and Institutional Housing Partners (IHP) all had an interest.

From the development overview: John Laing Homes and Institutional Housing Partners (IHP) had a joint partnership to build 242 units of housing. In 2007, John Laing Homes filed for bankruptcy leaving IHP and Bank of America as the owners. By then, 14 units in 2 buildings and recreation center were already built. The 14 units from John Laing Homes were auctioned off. Then in 2010, O’Brien Homes arrived with approval from the City of Sunnyvale to build Fusion. The challenge was to design the community that would be functional, aesthetically cohesive to the other buildings units, and conducive to the needs of the target market today.

Who is the target market, the perfect buyer? O’Brien Homes had the consumer in mind throughout the design process. Beth Bartlett, Marketing Director continued the tour by drawing a picture of the resident. The City of Sunnyvale is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, which includes companies like Palm, AMD, NetApp, and Yahoo. There are 140,000 people in the city, mostly highly educated, young professionals without kids, and often engineers. They want community amenities where people can gather, relax, and be productive. The community center was renamed “Pulse” and redesigned from a large open space to one which had stronger appeal to the target market, included a flat screen TV and fireplace, Wi-Fi throughout, coffee bar, catering kitchen, private 12 person theater, fitness center, and outdoor patio. The community grounds include beautiful redwood trees, a playground for young kids, and a dry rock pathway. O’Brien Homes noted they may have miscalculated the use of a putting green.

Two noteworthy points are 1) the installation of a one acre park adjacent to Fusion that O’Brien Homes built for the City of Sunnyvale and 2) the 122 GreenPoint Rated Points (Build It Green’s green rating) that Fusion received, well over the 70 point city standard.

One of most interesting sales concepts from Fusion was the “Hassle Free” Home Purchase Experience. They didn’t negotiate, but offered a lot of information to the prospective buyers and a lot of personal attention. This worked with the target customer base. Since pre-sales started in March 2011, the have sold 11 units per month on average, well above expectations. The team from O’Brien Homes answered all questions and was very generous with real-world experience and advice during the tour. We can see why they sold out quickly.

We finished the tour back at the model home kitchen with wine, snacks, and wonderful conversation with the good people of ULI.

Developers: O’ Brien Homes
Architects: KTGY Group
Landscaping: Ripley Design Group

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