Clark Construction Group is building Pacific Beacon as a joint venture for the U.S. Navy and Clark Realty.

Premier Business Partners:

Woodbridge Glass

The $250 million project will consist of three 18-story towers containing 941 resort-style apartments that will encompass 1.2 million square feet combined. Approximately 459 apartment units will be in one building and 241 units will be in the other two. In addition, Clark is updating a 258-unit bachelor quarters facility on an adjacent site. Project Executive Mike Ricker says 1,882 sailors are expected to inhabit the buildings currently under construction.

Each sailor living at Pacific Beacon will receive a basic allowance for housing (BAH) from the Navy. “The rents here are designed so that they are in line with the BAH for the rank of the sailor,” Ricker says. “Rent is slightly less than a BAH, so he or she can use the remainder for long-distance phone service or satellite TV.

“The units will vary in size, as is the nature of any building, so there will be some larger units that will demand a slightly higher rent. Those would probably be occupied by the higher-ranking sailors.”

To accompany the towers, Clark is providing a five-story, 935-car parking garage near the site, as well as 400 surface parking spots.

High-End Features
Ricker says the Pacific Beacon project stands apart from other Clark projects in that it “provides an opportunity to raise the level of quality for military housing.” He adds the apartments are designed to be “on par with what you would see in a downtown condo here in San Diego.”

The Pacific Beacon towers boast several high-end features, Ricker notes. For instance, there will be a pool deck on the largest building with views of San Diego Bay. Above the 18th floor there will be rooftop terraces outfitted for grilling. Each tower will have an outside courtyard that features built-in grills and gas fire pits for outdoor cooking.

Adjacent to the largest building is a running track, as well as basketball and volleyball courts. There will also be some commercial spaces, such as a Wi-Fi café, credit union and sandwich shop. The largest tower will have a 10,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art fitness club on the first floor with a free weight room, an aerobics room, a spinning room and a large cardio equipment area.

There will be men’s and women’s locker rooms, as well. The fitness club will have glass walls on three sides offering views of the courtyards.

Ricker says Clark Reality personnel pulled together a focus group and surveyed the sailors before the project was designed to see what they wanted included in their housing. The surveys revealed that one of the most important features to sailors would be the ability to improve their physical fitness. This is what led the Navy and Clark to design the fitness club and construct smaller fitness facilities in the other two buildings.

Focus on Education
Another important theme was continuing education. “We will have classrooms or computer labs,” Ricker says. “The idea is that a university similar to Phoenix or ITT would come in and offer continued education for sailors on site.

“Whether that’s computer software training or a business class, the space is available for whatever is needed for the sailors,” he adds.

Pacific Beacon will also offer entertainment venues to the sailors, such as a 40-seat projection theater with stadium seating. In addition to the theater, there will be a game room with pool tables, foosball and card tables.

All of the apartment units will be equipped with a full kitchen, washer and dryer, common living room and a balcony with a modern glass rail, Ricker says. In addition, each unit will have two master bedroom suites with walk-in closets and full bathrooms.

The units will be fully furnished and virtually identical to the others, with the exception that some higher-ranking sailors might pay a little more for a slightly larger unit or one with a nicer view, Ricker says.

Without a Hitch
Ricker says Pacific Beacon has had surprisingly few challenges for a project of this magnitude. “We get a lot of visitors ranging from Pentagon officials to various Navy admirals and everyone asks, ‘What are the challenges you’ve encountered?’,” he notes. “It’s a tough question to answer because this project has run very smoothly for us.

“Really, the toughest challenge we have faced so far is how we can effectively communicate a complicated concrete schedule that require us to place 50,000 square feet of concrete each week between all three buildings and the parking structure. Although you can plan the work with a critical path method schedule, it doesn’t convey as well when there is so much happening on the same day.”
    
It’s in the Cards
Clark and its key subcontractors solved the problem by developing a graphic schedule that is color coded by trade, which tells each subcontractor where it needs to be that day. The company had the schedule replicated into wallet-sized cards that were passed out to all of the participating trades. To Ricker’s knowledge, this had never been done before in the industry.

“The first time we showed them the cards, people were a little skeptical at first,” he says. “Once we took their input, it took [another] month to develop the sequence, but once we involved everyone in the planning process, I think it was accepted well. The way we operate as a company is that from the very first day we start working on a proposal for a project, we’ll meet with key subs and develop a plan for the job.

“Going back two years before we even proposed on the project, we started meeting with key subs to determine the concrete sequence, what the right way to utilize the site would be, where the tower cranes should be – all of those things go into the process we have just to get through the proposal stage for a project. By the time we started construction here, a lot of planning was already done and it was a matter of executing the work, evaluating how things are working and then updating as we go.”

The plan worked well, Ricker says, and Clark is on budget and ahead of schedule. “That just goes back to the planning, coordination and now the execution of the structural phase of the project,” he says. “The group of subs we have here represent the very best of the already strong San Diego subcontractor community, so that really helps.”

On-time Delivery
As of late September, Clark was on the ninth, 10th and 12th floors of the three buildings’ concrete cycles. The buildings will be phased-delivered, with the first building and associated courtyard and parking areas due in December 2008. The other two will be turned over three months apart, in March and June 2009.