No More ‘What Floor Am I Parked On?’

Architectural firm Kaufman Meeks & Partners in Newport Beach and developer Legacy Partners in Irvine are claiming a first for a new design that offers an alternative to the ubiquitous underground garages at apartment buildings in Southern California.

Kaufman Meeks’ design is a four-story, above-ground parking garage at the newly completed Tierra del Rey, a 170-unit luxury apartment complex at Maxella and Glencoe avenues in Marina del Rey that is the first in Southern California to feature a fully above-ground garage, according to Kevin Newman, managing partner at the architectural firm.

Underground garages still make sense for some apartment projects, according to Newman and Dennis Cavallari, a senior vice president at Legacy Partners, but they said the above-ground design can save time and money in building many of the four- and five-story complexes so common in Southern California.

“Tenants love the idea [of above-ground parking] because they can park right on the same level where they live and not have to take an elevator up from a subterranean garage,” Newman said. Each level of the structure is connected to the corresponding level of the apartment complex by a pedestrian bridge. The design keeps the parking garage “almost completely hidden within the complex,” he said.

Cavallari said Legacy chose the above-ground design, which Kaufman Meeks has incorporated into more than a dozen projects in other parts of the country, because of its appeal to tenants as well as its potential to reduce construction time and costs on certain types of projects. Legacy has opted for the above-ground design at another of its apartment projects now under construction, a 350-unit luxury complex on Colorado Boulevard near Cloverfield Avenue in Santa Monica that is scheduled for completion next year.

Not having to dig a big hole in the ground can save several months on construction, which typically takes about a year and a half, Cavallari said. “Besides not having to excavate for the garage, you save time by building the apartment units at the same time as you’re building the garage,” he noted.

Complexes with underground parking typically cost $85 to $90 per square foot to build, Newman said, compared with $72 to $74 per square foot for the above-ground design.

He noted that the above-ground design at Tierra del Rey won the 1999 Grand Award as best apartment project of four or more stories recently at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference in San Francisco.

Despite its advantages, Cavallari said the above-ground concept is “not a panacea.” Because above-ground parking consumes space that might otherwise be apartments, the concept makes the most sense for projects where zoning limits the site to about 55 to 60 units per acre, he said. In cases where zoning allows higher density--say, 80 units per acre--developers might prefer to stick with underground parking in order to build more units.