Fancy Finishes, Gorgeous Garage
Bomel Construction has completed an eye-catching parking structure for the Outlets at San Clemente. The $28.4-million garage’s upscale design reflects the mall’s Spanish Colonial revival architecture. High-end features include 62 concrete-formed archways, pre-cast concrete balustrades and copper gutters and downspouts. Bomel’s project manager praised the field crews for a “phenomenal job.” The developer of the 62-store venue, the largest project under construction in the city, is “very pleased” with Bomel’s work.
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.––May 11, 2015.––Run-of-the-mill was never a phrase used to describe the $28.4-million parking structure recently finished by general contractor Bomel Construction Co. at the Outlets at San Clemente.
“In terms of the finishes and the overall look, it is by far the most elaborate garage that I’ve been a part of,” said Bomel Construction Project Manager Matt Prince, who has been with the design-build concrete contractor for seven years.
High-end features and finishes for the two-level, 1,167-stall parking structure include five entry towers with clay tile roofs; copper gutters and downspouts; pre-cast concrete balustrades, pre-cast stair treads and pre-cast planters. Foam shapes were integrated into the plaster system across most elevations. The entire exterior is coated in plaster with an undulating Spanish Colonial-style finish. And different concrete-formed archways, 62 in all, are part of each of the garage’s exposed elevations.
“It’s quite decorative,” Prince said. “There are many materials that we do not see on garages, with distinctive geometry on many of the columns and walls.”
At build-out, the Outlets at San Clemente, owned by Craig Realty Group of Newport Beach, will offer 580,000 square feet of shopping, dining and hotel space in the 248-acre Marblehead coastal development. The 62-store first-phase opening, to occur later this year, includes the Bomel-built parking structure and 325,000 square feet of shops and restaurants on a 52-acre sandstone bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It’s the largest project under construction in San Clemente. Layton Construction of Sandy, Utah, is the general contractor for the mall’s first phase.
Third Project With Developer
The Outlets at San Clemente is the second project completed by Anaheim Hills, Calif.-based Bomel Construction for Craig Realty Group. Two years ago, Bomel built a five-level, 500-stall garage at Craig Realty’s Citadel Outlets, bordering Interstate 5 in southeast Los Angeles, near the City of Commerce. Bomel broke ground in March on a third project with Craig Realty, a nine-level, 1,000-stall garage at Citadel Outlets.
“We’ve continued to grow the relationship,” said Steven Craig, president and CEO of the company he founded 20 years ago. “We have been very pleased with their work.”
Formidable Formwork
While a sparkling Pacific Ocean, rolling hills and a spacious job site were alluring aspects of the 14-month-long parking structure project, the garage’s unusual formwork commanded the rapt attention of Bomel’s construction crews.
“When this project started last year, I thought all the architectural walls and arches would be very difficult to form and pour in a production-oriented capacity, but our concrete and formwork crews did a phenomenal job,” said Prince, referring to Tim Perdew, Bomel’s project superintendent, Mike Alexander, Bomel’s general formwork superintendent, and Andre Waters, the contractor’s deck formwork superintendent.
“Considering the speed and pace of the schedule, these men played an integral part in getting a challenging project completed quickly and accurately,” Prince beamed.
Speedy Start
Bomel began construction of the nine-bay garage last April and got off to a fast and productive start. By early July, about 90% of the foundation, 80% of the first lift of columns, 100% of the shear walls and 15% of the elevated decks had been poured.
“We had vertical walls, slab on grade, elevated decks and foundations all going at the same time,” Prince explained. “When we started the elevated decks, we were still working to complete the foundations. We were averaging more than 1,000 yards of placed concrete a week. The big footprint facilitated an aggressive schedule and allowed us to work with multiple crews in several different areas at the same time. By early August, we had the flow of the project and pour sequences determined and had a very good idea when we’d be topped out.”
On the project’s ocean side, Bomel built a structural slab for five future retail and restaurant pads on the elevated deck, with service areas on the level below.
“This is a post-tensioned parking garage with post-tensioned slabs and beams up to the point where the retail pads begin and the post-tensioned slabs drop off and become a two-way, mild steel slab,” Prince elaborated. “The purpose of this design is to facilitate the tenant-improvement contractors’ ability to build-out these spaces, so they can core through the slabs and make whatever penetrations are needed for plumbing and future accommodations with minimal concern for damaging the structural integrity of the elevated slab.”
The 574-foot by 486-foot parking structure, accessible from Avenida Vista Hermosa, will have two elevators operating for the mall’s first phase, with an additional five to be built-out when subsequent restaurant/retail phases are constructed.
Smooth Inspection Process
While daily visits by city inspectors are usually commonplace, San Clemente officials were very knowledgeable about the process and details of building this type of parking structure.
“They understood what we were building as well as our sequence of work,” Prince said. “They accommodated our request for inspections in a timely manner, which allowed us to be in positions where we did not have to delay pours due to an area not being inspected.”
Speaking of positions, most of the stores and restaurants at the Outlets at San Clemente are positioned for views of the Pacific.
“I don't believe there is another site in the state, or maybe on the West Coast, that has the major interstate ––I-5, which runs north and south––that comes this close to the ocean,” Craig told the Orange County Register newspaper last year.
About San Clemente: Established by local landowner Ole Hanson in 1925 and incorporated three years later, the city of San Clemente borders the Pacific Ocean (4.7 miles of beachfront property), roughly halfway between the downtowns of Los Angeles and San Diego. Its population of 67,892 represents an increase of approximately 4,000 since the U.S. Census of 2010. San Clemente’s median family income is $89,289; its median home value is $620,500. The city’s slogan, Spanish Village by the Sea, is underscored by its building code’s adherence to a Spanish Colonial style of architecture. With new developments sprouting in recent years, city development officials have leveraged the growth to funnel money into programs that reinvigorate and restore the historic downtown.
About Bomel Construction Co.: Established in 1970, Anaheim Hills, Calif.-based Bomel Construction is widely regarded as the dean of parking structure construction in the West. The family-owned business generated $135 million in total revenue in 2014. Its other current high-profile projects include Del Amo Fashion Center (1,950 stalls), Cal Poly Pomona (1,800) and Plaza San Clemente (1,167), with several additional parking structures set to begin construction this year. Bomel Construction, a design-build concrete contractor, has completed major parking structures for developers and owners of many of the largest shopping malls, casinos, stadiums, high-rise office buildings, colleges and universities throughout the West. Bomel has regional offices in Carlsbad, Calif., and Las Vegas.
For more information, please contact Paul Napolitano at 626-852-9959 or paul@napolitanocommunications.com.
