It's not a riddle, we swear, but McGregor Co's gargantuan One Santa Fe. The $130M development, which recently topped out, stretches for one-third a mile down Santa Fe Avenue in Downtown LA. (You can use the perimeter as a track.) We dropped by to get the latest on the TOD, which is being built by a team that includes Canyon-Johnson.
One Santa Fe, which is across the street from SCI-Arc, will ultimately contain 438 rental units (including 88 affordable), 80k SF of retail, and some MTA offices, according to Bernards operations SVP Dave Cavecche, whose firm is GC. Groundbreaking was made possible on a 70-year ground lease with the MTA; it's being built next to the Gold Line Eastside Extension and is also designed as a portal for the Red Line. (Crews actually have to work around high-voltage rails... sounds like a video game with higher stakes.)
We snapped this in the midst of construction. (Anyone want to play "Count the Scaffolds"?). Architect Michael Maltzen designed a project that would fit within a very narrow footprint next to the train yard. The lineal project will be 60 feet deep at its narrowest point and 130 feet at the widest; from overhead, the buildings look like a segmented train. One Santa Fe will feature a 750-foot-long bridge (top right) with residential units on top. Underneath, non-residents will be able to drive to a valet area to visit shops and restaurants.
Dave said there's been a number of challenges in building the project, particularly in site logistics. Because of the project's linear nature, it was tough to set up a centralized crane. "We're at zero lot lines, so the staging area is super-tight," he says—one structure is less than 18 inches from an existing MTA building. Given the access to the rails, there's also stringent security. Add in a mix of construction types, including precast concrete, cast-in-place concrete, and wood-frame construction. (Perhaps the Three Little Pigs might have some other ideas.) The building is set to deliver in November.
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