McCarthy, one of the nation’s leading parking structure builders, has been awarded a contract for the design and construction of a new 828-car parking structure and an adjacent 6,000-gross-square-foot police substation at Miramar College, located in the Mira Mesa/Scripps Ranch area of San Diego.
The police station building is designed to achieve LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, and will be the first LEED Platinum project for a community college in San Diego County.
The $24.3 million project is part of the San Diego Community College District’s $1.555 billion Propositions S and N construction program, providing for new facilities and campus-wide infrastructure projects at City, Mesa and Miramar colleges, and six continuing education campuses.
“The McCarthy team brought a cost-effective, aesthetically pleasing, efficient parking structure concept and innovative approaches to achieving LEED Platinum certification on the police substation in a highly competitive selection process,” said David Umstot, vice chancellor of the San Diego Community College District.
The four-story, above-grade parking structure will be constructed with poured-in-place reinforced concrete, and will encompass 14 interior police parking stalls and 12 adjoining surface lot stalls. The scope of work includes related site work, including drought-tolerant landscaping and high-efficiency irrigation systems using reclaimed water.
The single-story police substation will provide a central hub for campus security, wayfinding and parking permitting. Key to its sustainable design is a green roof grid system, which will cover the majority of the roof deck. The grid system uses modular panels for ease of installation, roof access and maintenance. The green screen will cover the west elevation of the parking structure and provide the aesthetic of a vertical garden. These living plants will contribute to a microclimate central to the facility’s passive thermal and natural ventilation design.
The xeriscape plants to be used on the roof system will significantly reduce the need for stormwater infrastructure conveyance and retention systems. They also will help remove impurities from stormwater runoff while reducing maintenance costs for filtration systems.
Additionally, the green roof and wall systems will reduce the heat island effect and complement the benefits of the pervious pavement to be used in the parking area. The green screen on the west elevation of the parking structure will further contribute to lower ambient heat gain, both within the police substation and the new parking structure.
An array of other sustainable design features factor into the building’s LEED Platinum level sustainable design, including terra cotta rain screens that create a vented facade and increase building envelope energy efficiency; curtain walls that have horizontal exterior siding on the south, vertical fins on the east, and a large glazed area facing north; operable windows that provide natural ventilation; Solatube skylights that capture natural light and enhance occupants’ work conditions; ceilings in the office and work areas that open to the concrete slab and optimize the radiant properties of the building’s thermal mass; and suspended ceiling “clouds” that enhance acoustical performance while serving as reflectors for daylight.
Additional green features include “cradle to cradle” certified finish materials, renewable and recycled flooring, and low-emitting casework materials. The reception area of the police substation will feature a recessed, interactive flat screen panel that informs visitors of the building’s sustainable features, and reinforces Miramar College’s sustainability goals.
“Managing the incorporation of the required items to obtain LEED Platinum status is a welcome challenge for the McCarthy team,” said Bob Betz, project director of McCarthy Building Companies. “Based on our firm’s accumulated LEED experience and our established working relationship with the San Diego Community College District, we’re confident this goal can be achieved.”
Harley Ellis Devereaux is the design architect, with International Parking Design as the architect of record. Jessen Wright Structural Engineers is the structural engineer, Randall Lamb Associates is the electrical engineer, SC Engineers is the mechanical engineer, and Burkett & Wong Engineers is the civil engineer. Schmidt Design Group is serving as the landscape architect.
About McCarthy
McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest commercial construction companies and has been one of the leading parking structure builders since the advent of the modern parking structure in the 1960s. The company has delivered nearly 400 parking facilities throughout the United States, with parking spaces for more than 70,000 cars in California alone. The firm offers general contracting, construction management, program management and design/build services for parking structures; healthcare, educational, mixed-use, laboratory, biotechnical, retail, entertainment, industrial, multifamily and microelectronics facilities; green buildings; office buildings; tenant interiors; and bridges and highways. McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned. More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.
