Built on one of the city’s last remaining industrial parcels, we were delighted to be tapped for preconstruction and construction of Poway Ridgeview Park. The project came packed with challenges, inherent in the long, narrow, 19-acre site on the ridge of a 200-FT canyon, hemmed in by an industrial access road. Below, the community was understandably anxious about light pollution.
To maximize site usability, we worked with our architectural partners on space and program planning and design, deciding on three side-by-side buildings with extremely accurate parking. The logistics required scheduling flexibility, as we filled in the canyon side and phased construction to work our way outward. Given a sloped slab, building elements had to be installed square to the slab rather than the surroundings—not uncommon in the area—but the unusually wet winter made the rocky, nonporous soil highly problematic. To cope, we set up storm water retention basins all along the building, trapping and pre-filtering water. We allayed community concerns by creatively confining illumination to the access roadside, enabling nighttime parking and exceptional dock and loading capabilities, without affecting canyon views.
