Best Of 2006 - McGraw Hill Construction

Best of 2006 Northern California
Plaza Apartments opened its doors to
tenants in January 2006, becoming the
first new construction for supportive
housing in the South of Market neighborhood.
A nine-story building on the
northeast corner of Howard and Sixth
streets, Plaza offers 106 single resident
occupancy (SRO) units.
The first LEED-certified building constructed
by general contractor Nibbi
Brothers, Plaza Apartments became the
first affordable housing development
with a LEED silver certification for both
the city and county of San Francisco. It
was also the first project developed by
the Public Initiatives Development
Corp., a nonprofit development corporation
of the San Francisco
Redevelopment Agency formed in
2001.
Project challenges were many,
including being located in a high-volume
traffic corridor that also has a continuous
volume of pedestrian traffic.
And from Thanksgiving through the
New Year, there is a holiday moratorium
that prohibits any construction
work on the street or deliveries; no lane
of Sixth St., for example, could be
obstructed.
In addition to a tight site, materials
and logistics issues, the tenant type was
changed in early 2005. Plaza
Apartments was originally slated for
low income residents, but in 2005 the
project was brought under the wing of
the mayor’s 10-year plan on homelessness
included in the Direct Access to
Housing program. DAH is run by the
Department of Health; the tenants are
formerly homeless people with disabilities
that are currently being seen by
department case workers. The goal of
Judges’ Comments
the program is to shift the burden of
care off of facilities like SF General and
Laguna Honda and shift them toward
supportive housing developments.
31 California Construction 12/2006
Plaza Apartments,
San Francisco
Project Team
Redevelopment
Winner
Owner
Public Initiatives Development Corp.
Architect
Leddy Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects
and Paulett Taggart Architects, in association
General Contractor
Nibbi Brothers Construction
Engineering Team
OLMM (structural), C&B Consulting
Engineers (mechanical/plumbing),
Pete O. Lapid & Associates (electrical),
Talamon Engineers (civil),
GLS Architects (landscape)
Key subcontractors
Webcor (concrete), Western
Waterproofing, FW Spencer (plumbing/HVAC),
Thyssen Elevator, Scott
Electric, Peak Engineering (building
demo/grading and paving)
The program change necessitated an
extensive redesign of the public spaces.
The ground floor multi-purpose room
was turned into the case workers’
office. On the second floor, the existing
“Highly integrated synthesis of social programs,
sustainable construction and urban scale-making.”
office space was reconfigured to add
more staff. The laundry room and
lounge became the nurse’s office, exam
room and psychiatrist’s office.