New San Diego County Operations Center Targets ‘Timelessness’

Lowe Enterprises leads massive, $500-million project that will consolidate, upgrade existing facilities

By David Silva

“We’re looking for something that will be timeless,” says RJC Architects principal James Robbins of the $500-million San Diego County Operations Center, a massive development under way in the county’s Kearny Mesa district.

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“The center’s existing buildings have been there for close to 50 years. We’re expecting these to be there at least as long.”

General contractor ROEL Construction of San Diego launched the first phase of the three-phase, 38-acre project in September 2008. Plans for the $188.5-million fi rst phase, expected to be completed in December 2010, call for two four-story, 150,000-sq-ft office buildings; a 500,000-sq-ft, 1,800-stall parking garage; and a 12,500-sq-ft central plant serving the entire campus.

Mike Berryhill, project director for ROEL, says county officials have to undergo a funding process at the completion of each phase of the project to determine the scope of the next phase.

But project master developer Lowe Enterprises Real Estate Group-West in San Diego
anticipates the second phase to begin in January 2011 and for the entire development
to be built out 24 months later. The center will consolidate the county’s existing operations complexes from two sites to one. The second and third phases at the center will include four additional four-story, 150,000-sq-ft office buildings; a 20,000-sq-ft conference center and cafeteria; and an asyet-designed second parking structure for 4,500 cars. Robbins says the campus will be defined almost as much by open space as what’s built on the site.

“From the very beginning, we’ve been concerned about the space between the
buildings as well as the actual design of the buildings,” says Robbins, whose firm is based in San Diego. “The outdoor spaces are defined by the buildings as outdoor rooms. We think that’s important because it will create a park-like setting for the employees and visitors to the site.”

The six office buildings, which combined will add about 900,000 sq ft of office space
to the center, are virtually identical in design. All have large floor plates to accommodate multiple county departments on the same floors, Robbins says.

“We’re trying to create efficient floor plates so that the net-to-gross ratio is good,”
he says. “Also, the ratio of exterior skin to enclosed area is such that they’re efficient in
terms of space planning and cost.”

Berryhill says the central plant is almost complete. The biggest challenge thus far, he adds, has been in keeping construction from interfering with the county’s various departments located next to the job site. “We’re building the new projects within an existing center,” he says. “So we have county employees still working onsite right next to construction. This means constantly adjusting site logistics to facilitate the employees.”

At the end of each phase of the development, employees will be transferred from their old buildings to the new ones.

“The old buildings will be demolished once the employees have relocated,” says Mike McNerney, senior vice president of Lowe Enterprises. “We have to make sure the county can continue to operate while construction is going on, so we’ve had to get employees and guests around. We have a shuttle program and parking program to help with this.”

McNerney says workers have also had to contend with the reality of a site that hasn’t seen major construction in four decades.

“The entire site was built out 40 years ago,” he adds. “We had to do a lot of research to determine where existing utility lines were, and had to keep a 24-hour phone line open to the sheriff’s department.”

The first phase is ahead of schedule and under budget, McNerney says.

Robbins says the projects should earn at least a LEED silver rating. Among the development’s environmentally friendly features are floor plans clustering private
offices around glass fronts to take advantage of natural light, energy-efficient roofing, glazing systems to reduce heat gain, and a landscape irrigation system designed to reduce water usage.

Composed primarily of precast concrete and glass, the new operations center will
reflect the color scheme of a majority of the complex’s existing structures.

“The precast concrete has a warm tint to it that was influenced in construction designed by others – the medical examiner’s building, for example,” Robbins says. “It’s more of a warm, cream-colored concrete. The glass has a green tint to it. There are metal panels that are essentially the color of a natural silver.”