Gold Avenue Lofts Shine

By K. Robert Wendel

Albuquerque residents now have a "golden" opportunity for downtown urban living with the recent completion of the Gold Avenue lofts.

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Bradbury Stamm Construction, a local company, completed the shell work on the 41 -condo units in January, with individual owners in the midst of tenant improvements. The six-story building, which features all lofts, sits across the street from the historic train station and is part of a growing urban living movement in downtown Albuquerque.

Other projects include the recently completed Arno Lofts, and the Albuquerque High School Lofts. Work continues at the Albuquerque High School Gymnasium lofts.

The building team constructed the project under a design-build contract.

Albuquerque's Historic District Improvement Co. is the developer and is a private company specializing in developing loft projects.

So far, two loft owners have completed their tenant improvements, creating elegant and stylish rooms featuring high-end finishes, track lighting and exposed ducting. Sales have closed on six units, with shell space ranging from $190,000 to $360,000.

The owners (of the units) do what they want," said architect Jill Annarino of Albuquerque's Hartman + Majewski Design Group, the project's architect.

"Right now, the units don't even have toilets, just a hole in the floor. Some people have been very intimidated and just walked away, but the right type of clientele has risen to the occasion."

The open floor plans emphasizes space and airiness. Each unit comes with a patio and a floor-to-ceiling commercial glass curtain wall. Some owners are equipping their units with automated shade devices, while others are using traditional louvers.

The building's ground floor features an eye-catching entrance, with a portal clad in copper plate. The copper cladding shimmers in the light and punctuates the traditional warehouse look.

"We had a desire to make the entry stand out from the glass without it being brick," Annarino said. "It's a traditional old warehouse look with modern glazing technology. It's a combination of industrial warehouse meets modern design."

The ground level of the 72,000-sq.-ft. building features a 12,000-sq.-ft. retail space. There are work/live units for small businesses on the second floor, and the other four floors are all condominium units.

Residents have their own parking garage with 35 spaces.

As with any project in a crowded downtown, site space was tight.

Contractors also ran into soil issues that are typical of downtown Albuquerque.

"We had to put a lot of caissons in here because the soils were just really bad," said Eric Schultz, vice president of marketing for Bradbury Stamm.

"Another complicated factor was keeping Gold Avenue open, which we had to do."

Contractors initially installed a test piling, which failed under load. The failure meant contractors needed another foundation scheme and a way to test it.

Casting the auger-cast pile design aside, contractors turned to drilled piers.

"There were serious foundation issues," said Bradbury's project manager Rick Tavelli. "The test pier didn't yield the anticipated bearing capacity, so we had to do some very intricate testing of the next pile to verify the foundation system worked."

The steel-framed building sits on drilled piers and is clad with brick. Lubbock, Texas-based W & W Steel Co. Inc. supplied the steel frame, which was erected by Hughes & Associates Inc. of Albuquerque. Beaty Construction Co. of Albuquerque laid the brick cladding.

Each unit features a split mechanical system with a furnace and air conditioner with condensation units on the roof. Although the project featured high ceilings, it was still a close fit for mechanical engineer GRL Engineers of Louisville, Colo., and mechanical installers Aztec Mechanical Inc. of Albuquerque.

"It was a really tough job for us," said Aztec's project manager Chris Jones.

"There were a lot of tight spaces."