Spotlight

New challenges arise for the concrete contractor due to the growing demand for in-fill projects such as Conco’s current Essex-Elkhorn Court Apartment Homes in San Mateo, CA. The City of San Mateo is part of the Bay Area plan drafted by the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Commission designed to find solutions to meet the growing housing needs of the Bay Area. An integral part of their plan is to locate housing near transportation corridors and jobs. The result of doing this would generate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions due to a less automobile traffic.

Therefore, more projects being constructed are located next to existing commercial buildings and residential complexes. These in-fill projects pose challenges such as noise, site access, and impact on the surrounding neighborhood.

The Essex-Elkhorn Court Apartment Homes will consist of 197 apartment units and have 125,978 square feet of office space with below grade parking for all. The project is being constructed by Barry Swenson Builder.

The Essex-Elkhorn project is sandwiched adjacent to a hospital, day care center and residential housing.  Because of this, special attention had to be taken to lessen the impact of performing the concrete work on the surrounding neighbors including scheduling large concrete pours on weekends during designated hours only and reducing the traffic around the site by limiting mixer truck traffic by pumping concrete from one pump to another.  The attached clip shows a time lapsed video for accomplishing one of four mat pours scheduled for the project.

Type of Construction:

• 3” Thick Mud Slab w/ 2” Thick Protection Slab over waterproofing
• 30” Thick Below Grade Mat Foundation Slab
• Two Levels of Below Grade Parking: 8” thick Post Tensioned slabs
• Podium Level at Grade: 11” thick Post Tensioned slab
• Exterior Basement Walls: Shotcrete applied against shoring walls.
• Interior Walls: Shotcrete with Backform
• Cast-in-place Columns
• Total CY (including mud slabs & shotcrete): 15,500cy