This  360,000 s.f. mixed-use, commercial and student housing project is comprised of a new, eight-story facility constructed on an urban site located along Route 1.  Program requirements include 351 parking spaces in a garage below the building and 665 student beds distributed over 6 levels.  Leasable retail space of about 8,500 square feet is located at the street level.  This new facility serves the University of Maryland student population and integrates the needs of the surrounding community.

The building design includes two residential towers each with a flat roof and six residential levels.   The residential towers are seperated by a courtyard area located at the first floor.  The courtyard structure is designed to accommodate shallow plantings and pavers.  The first floor serves as a transfer slab to support the residential levels above and, at the same time, creates a fire separation between the residential levels and the retail and parking below.  The ground floor is located at street level and is divided into retail and parking.  A basement and sub-basement provides additional parking and utility rooms.  Each of the three parking levels is accessed from surrounding grades, eliminating the need for internal ramps.

• The site was previously used as a rubble landfill and contains thick layers of soft materials and construction debris.  The construction of the two below grade parking levels removed much of the pour soils.  The remaining fill materials were modified in situ using Geopiers® to densify the soil, improve the safe bearing value and mitigate excessive settlement.
• The first floor level post tensioned concrete slab is used as transfer slab to support the cold formed steel framed levels above.  The slab supports the stud bearing walls and transfers the load to the concrete framing below.
• The building was design to attain LEED^® Silver certification which requires a 14% reduction in energy usage