Building Tight and Green

L.A. City College gets high marks for innovative use of space at its parking structure/athletic field project.

By David Silva

Workers have completed excavation and are laying the foundation for Los Angeles City College's parking structure and athletic field project, the first major construction project at the school in 26 years.

Scheduled for completion in April 2007, the $52 million project features a 318,913-sq.-ft., 951-space subterranean parking garage. To conserve space, a 168,912-sq.-ft. athletic field and bleachers will be built on top of the garage, and a 12,000-sq.-ft. maintenance and operations facility will be constructed inside it.

The renovations are part of the Los Angeles Community College District's $2.2 billion construction and improvement program using the city's Proposition A/AA bond funds. About $248 million of those funds are targeted for L.A. City College.

"L.A. City College is a compact, urban school and land is pretty limited, so we needed to fulfill multiple functions with this project," said Larry Eisenberg, the school's executive director of facilities, planning and development.

The innovative use of space, combined with efficient heating and lighting materials, are expected to earn the maintenance and operations facility of the parking garage a LEED rating.

"Getting a LEED rating is a challenge all by itself," Eisenberg said. "Typically under the program, the entire structure would need to be certified, so we needed the U.S. Green Council to say that just the maintenance building was OK.

"The college's maintenance crew had been running out of a ramshackle facility. As at many colleges, maintenance typically winds up in the last structure available."

The district's trustees made the decision that if any project is funded by at least half A/AA bond funds, then the project would be required to get at least a LEED-certified rating by the U.S. Green Building Council.

In March, the LACCD was given a Savings by Design award by the Southern California Gas Co. for adopting and implementing sustainable energy principles at its nine colleges.

Bovis Lend Lease of Los Angeles is the general contractor for the garage/athletic field project, and STUDIOS Architecture of Beverly Hills is the architect. LRM Ltd. Of Culver City designed the landscaping.

The rooftop athletic field will replace the college's existing field, which Eisenberg said was sorely outdated. The new facility will include a softball and soccer field and an eight-lane running track. It will accommodate track and field sports such as pole vault, discus and shot put.

The field's 850-seat bleachers will cantilever over the sidewalk along one side of the facility in order to maximize space.

STUDIOS Architecture primarily employed pre-cast concrete panels in its design. A mix of blue, black and white tiles and brick was used to blend the facility in with the rest of the campus. Galvanized metal grille was liberally dispersed throughout the facility.

STUDIOS project manager Kelly Wallace said materials were chosen both for their durability and with an eye on cost savings.

"We did this project under a very tight budget," Wallace said. "Anything that's done public-wise comes with a lot of constraints to work under, one being budget."

The firm consulted with International Parking Design of Sherman Oaks for that agency's expertise in parking facilities.