Hi! Over the last 10 years, the firm where I work in Boston has predominately designed housing & senior living projects in the the Boston Metro region, with the occassional project in NH, CT, RI, and NY. We have built projects as far south at DC, but never designed anything to my knowledge in California in our 55 years of operation. A developer we have worked with on several projects directly hired us to design a student housing tower in San Jose, CA. It is a P3 project and we are in the early stages of making the proforma work. We will be working with an architect of record but right now we are on our own.
I'm reaching out to this network to ask, what would be your advice for understanding what regulatory requirements for both the city of San Jose and upcoming CA energy or building codes might require? (would be permitting the building in 2021 most likely) How might one approach this project in a different climate than we are used to working?
I plan on providing the team climate information and perhaps we could run some preliminary analysis for PHIUS compliance. I'm looking for information on anything that we might want to be aware of for this jurisdiction as we work through early concept design. I know I would have lots of advice for approaching the Boston/ Cambridge market that would take an outsider a lot of time to look up and digest, so looking really for anything that might be helpful to our team and draw on the expertise of this group. Anything you send my way would be much appreciated!
Alison Nash AIA | LEED AP ID+C | CPHC | WELL AP (she/ her/ hers)
Associate, Sustainability Practice Leader Direct / 617-778-0118 WFH / 607-319-9919
DiMella Shaffer
Office / 617-426-5004
