Everybody Goes Downtown

A new structure for what promises to be high-end shopping is taking shape on the historic downtown plaza in Santa Fe.

Local contractor Cameron Construction started on the three-story "Santa Fe Arcade" in December. The building team is eyeing a spring completion on the design-build project that includes a storage basement.

The arcade will cost approximately $10 million and is owned by the Santa Fe Arcade LLC.

Because the project sits on the historic Santa Fe Plaza, designers and builders had to contend with many restrictions, including a height limitation. The owner and designer decided to use cast-in-place concrete to preserve ceiling space and to avoid using steel, which would have required deep steel beams.

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"The owner wanted to keep the head heights, and cast-in-place concrete was the way to do it," said Sam Verna, a project superintendent for Santa Fe-based Cameron Construction. "The owner also wanted a lot of class A concrete, and it's nice not to cover up the concrete for a change."

Designers bundled the mechanical and electrical runs into two soffits running down the arcade's central corridor, which features daylighting through the use of skylights.
The project's interior finishes are dominated by concrete, and glass along with pinewood accents.

"We think if you don't show concrete, you are a fool," said project architect Thomas Krahenbuhl of Dallas-based TKTR Architects. "It's like covering mahogany wood with paint. It's just wrong."

The project is shoe-horned between two older buildings sitting on rubble foundations.
Neither of the neighboring buildings is square, and each has walls varying up to 2 ft. from the front to the back.

To fit in, the Santa Fe Arcade project is wedge-shaped to accommodate the wandering walls of its neighbors.

The site also falls from the plaza level grade to a lower grade on Water Street, behind the plaza. Contractors shored up the adjacent buildings to pour the arcade's slab-on-grade foundation, which is extra beefy because of the 5,000 cu. yds. of concrete in the project.

"One of the biggest challenges was designing the step-ups from the plaza down to Water Street," said Mike Walla, a structural engineer and principal at Walla Engineering Inc. of Albuquerque. "With a concrete structure, the loads on the foundations are much more significant, so the footings have to be substantial."

Engineers also had to calculate for a small electric tower crane, which was used on the tiny building pad. The site's size meant little to no room for contractors to stage materials, so the tower crane became essential in unloading materials off a busy street.

"It's an intense job because there is absolutely no room to organize," said Curt Trafton, a senior supervisor with concrete firm Noel Company Inc. of Albuquerque. "There just weren't any dead spaces to put stuff. As soon as an area became available for work, there was work going on immediately."

The tight site also meant an unusual electric transformer installation.

"This project is one of the first times in downtown Santa Fe that the utility company couldn't install an above-ground transformer," said David Gonzales, a principal engineer with Peak Power Engineering of Santa Fe. "We had to make special provisions for a basement vault, which isn't unusual in San Francisco or New York.
Real estate is at such a premium that there isn't a place to carve out a space for a utility transformer above ground."