By Mark Vranicar

Wasn't it just yesterday that we were throwing together office buildings and tenant improvements as fast as people could fill them?  Those days seem to have vanished in the haze to be replaced by condominiums.  Now it seems that every new building that is going up is a residential tower with some retail on the street level.

High density housing is currently the rage with many projects coming out of the ground from San Francisco to San Jose.  The market in San Francisco has been going for some time in the south of Market area, but downtown San Jose is really picking up steam.  We currently are working on four projects in the downtown San Jose area and six in the San Francisco area.  Some of our first generation projects are coming on line now.  Mission Bay Block N1 has been open for over a year and our feature project, the St. Regis Hotel and Condominiums is just complete. 

Even though this market is just recently picking up, it has already changed.  With the adaptation of the new Title 24 requirements, these housing projects can no longer be designed with electric radiant heat.  This has caused a dramatic shift in the amount of work that can be involved for us.  Now instead of just installing exhaust systems, the minimum project requires a hot water heating system as well.  From there, it is not that big a budget leap to install a heating and cooling system that allows the project to be marketed at the higher end.

Unlike office buildings, these projects take a great engineering effort at the start of the project.  The architect is trying to balance the requirements of the MEP trades with the requirements of the marketing department as well as the budget constraints of the owner.  This leads to many iterations of the floor plan before the project gets into construction.  Challenges in the field include the simultaneous installation of an entire floor of units as well as start up of easily three hundred heat pumps in a very short period of time.  Of course this is just another part of the cycle of our business.  When will the housing trend ebb?  Who knows, but when it does, CMI will adapt and move onto the next challenge.