Skyline Identity

San Jose's first mixed-use high rise gets a height adjustment

By Don Lipper & Elizabeth Sagehorn

There's a moment when makeover dreamers hit reality. In the case of Central Place, an $89-million, two-tower, 22-story, high-rise, mixed-use project, it was the FAA.

"The early question was, where do those towers go and what will be the scale?" says Bill Ekern, director of project management for the city of San Jose. "The trade off is the towers have gotten shorter and fatter."

Because the building was on the flight path of the San Jose airport, FAA-mandated height restrictions clipped the wings of the towers. Sandy Babcock Architects added a design element along the side "that tracked down the building to give that sense of the raising up into the sky," says Tom Sprinkle, vice president of San Francisco's SB Architects. "[It] makes the top seem taller and slimmer than it actually is. So it helps us to identify it on the skyline."

The project is being built by Webcor Builders of San Mateo. Owners/developers are CIM Group, Wilson Meany Sullivan and the San Jose Redevelopment Agency.

The first tower will feature 197 condominiums in one-, two-, and three-bedroom configurations, plus eight penthouse units and one observation deck. Residential amenities on the 5th level include a pool, spa, fitness center, patios, and gardens. Outside there will be a plaza landscaped with stone pavers, sidewalks, outdoor seating and $700,000 worth of public art.

Despite its heights, Central Place was originally challenged by more earthbound concerns: parking. Ironically, for a site that had previously been a parking lot, they had to decide where to put all the cars.

Originally the designs called for only two large floors of underground public parking supported by expensive piles, but the project was able to shave $1.5 million by digging down to a better bearing layer and building three compact floors on a mat slab foundation. The project also has three above-grade floors for residential parking.

The project finished pouring the ground slab and is working on the parking structures. Once Webcor gets to the tower construction, the estimate will be building a floor a week for a completion date of second quarter 2008. The second high-rise mixed use tower for Phase II should start just as Phase I finishes.

The project includes approximately 31,000 sq ft of urban retail in a configuration that would lend itself to an average Best Buy-sized store that could grow to two stories.

The design of each of the two towers is made up of two interlocking masses - one with high performance glass, to take advantage of views of the adjacent hills to the east, and another mass on the west and south sides made of concrete with horizontal extensions, which serve as both balconies and sun-shading devices.

"From the east especially we knew we were going to have a prominence on the skyline that was going to last a long time," says Sprinkle. "So we wanted to make sure that what we were building was attractive, dynamic and interesting so that people would be proud to live there."

The Project Team

Owners/Developers: Wilson Meany Sullivan, San Francisco; CIM Group, San Francisco; San Jose Redevelopment Agency
General Contractor: Webcor Builders, San Mateo
Architect: SB Architects, San Francisco