Paseo Caribe Condominium Tower

Building Statistics

General Building Data

Building Name: Paseo Caribe Condominium Tower and Parking Garage Phase III

Location: The site is located in Puerto Plata in the Municipality of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The site consisting of 20,018 square meters (215,470 sqft) was previously owned by the U.S Navy Coast Guard Parcel. It is situated between the landmark Caribe Hilton Hotel in old San Juan on the north and the entrance to the islet of San Juan on the east overlooking Condado Lagoon. It is enclosed by Ponce de Leon Avenue on the south and Luis Munoz Rivera Avenue on the west.

Building Occupant Name: The project is owned by San Geronimo Development, Inc. The condominium tower has 46-luxury apartment to be sold to private parties. The 8 story parking garage connected to it is to serve multiple purposes including private apartment parking along with valet and public parking for the neighboring Caribe Hilton Hotel, the Paseo Caribe Entertainment Center (Phase IV) and the new Convention Center.

Occupancy: The Parking Garage consists of open and enclosed parking. The occupancy classification is Storage (Group S, Division 4) and Storage (Group S, Division 3), respectively. The Condominium Tower is only residential occupancy type.

Size: The footprint for the Condominium Tower and Parking Garage is approximately 271' by 240' giving an area of 65,240 sqft. The Condominium Tower has a total area of 284,480 sqft including 40 luxury apartment units with 3,500 sqft each and 4 penthouses with 5,200 sqft each. The parking garage serves 1,283 parking spaces and it is 10 stories high having a total area of 514,893 sqft. The total area for both Condo and Parking is approximately 800,000 sqft. Number of Stories: The Parking Garage has 10 levels, 2 below grade and 8 above grade reaching an elevation of 75.1' above grade. The Condominium has additional 14 levels of apartments starting where the Parking Garage ends. The total height is 244' - 3" above grade.

Dates of Construction:
Planning overall Paseo Caribe Four Phase Project - 1998
Approved - January 12, 2001

Parking Garage: Bid Set - May 8, 2002
Construction Began - October 2003

Condominium Towers:
Bid Set - May 21, 2002
Initial Target Turnover including Phase IV - 2004
Current Expected Completion Date - 2007

Cost: Initially at $170 million overall project cost because of the three year delay expect cost is now at $240 million.

Project Delivery Method: Design – Bid – Build

Project Teams:

Owner and Developer

San Gerónimo Development Corp.
Arturo Madera Arboleda
Calle Bolivia 54 Suite 203
Hato Rey, Puerto Rico 00918

Contractor

Architects

 

Building System Information

Architecture:

Paseo Caribe is a 240 million dollar mix – use megaproject in Condado, San Juan’s prime tourism sector. The project first developed when the Caribe Hilton was for sell in 1998. As part of the deal with Hilton International to buy the Hilton, the government stipulated a requirement for the development of the former federal seven-acre lot adjacent to the site. The development had to include more restaurants, retail and parking spaces, and 300 plus more hotel rooms to transform the Hilton into an important primary supporting element for the new Convention Center. The center being built was schedule to finish construction by October 2004. Together, the projects would further continue making Puerto Rico the number one tourist attraction in the Caribbean.

Paseo Caribe consists of four main components that make it a world-class entertainment destination center: the Condado Lagoon Villas 88 condo-hotel villas, the Caribe Plaza Condominium, a huge parking lot, and the 185,000 sqft Entertainment Center that will host a 22,000 sqft casino, restaurants, retail and 7 big screen cinemas. The whole complex takes advantage of the central location and ocean views.

I will focus my studies toward the Caribe Plaza Condominium and parking garage. They are divided into two design phases, II and III, but occupy the same building enclosure. The parking lot is eight levels above grade with two below grade and serves 1,700 vehicles. The design is meant to alleviate traffic jams that tend to occur in the busy area of the Hilton downtown Condado. It will have five separate exit gates to allow reasonable traffic, including direct access to the Hilton and the main Avenue Ponce de Leon.

The Condominium Tower, Phase III, is an extra 14 story condominium tower placed on top of the parking garage consisting of 40 luxury apartment each with 3,500 sqft and 6 penthouses each with 5,200 sqft. The condominium and the garage work together to accommodate for a lobby, mezzanine, and a common area with a gym, swimming pool and garden. The building is to be in architectural harmony with Phase I and will consist of reinforced concrete structure with a colored exterior stucco finish.

National Model Codes:
Building Code adopted by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is Uniform Building Code (UBC) 1997.
Other important codes include:
Fire: Uniform Fire Code (UFC)
Concrete: ACI 318 - 95
Loads: ASCE 7 – 95

Zoning and History: Site belonged to the U.S Navy. It is in close proximity with the bay that serves as the islet to San Juan. The site has been classified as Commercial but debate on whether is should be classified as Marine Terrain has aided in the three year delay of the project. Setbacks are only implemented on the north boundary at 16.5’of the property line.

Building Envelope: The building is to be of reinforced concrete with colored stucco as the exterior finish. Glass panels cover the majority of the exterior surface along with vertical pre cast concrete fins that serve as visual separators and block two much daylight sun from entering the apartments.

Structure

The overall structural system of the Condominium and Parking complex is a combination of reinforced concrete shear walls and columns with a post tensioned concrete floor slab system.

Foundation: The parking garage was designed first with the notion that a condominium was to be built and designed at a later time on top of it. The foundation design consists of 40 to 50 inch deep pile caps. The typical pile cap consists of 10 piles placed 3’ c/c. However, on the west side of the building were the elevators, stairs and the tower rises there is an increased mat size to 30 piles per cap The layout of the foundation system is in a grid in pairs of three. Typical spacing is 15’ c/c north-south and 27’ c/c east-west. The building is enclosed below grade by a 2’ wide L retaining wall around the perimeter that goes to a maximum depth of 22’ with a 2’ hydrostatic slab on grade.

Garage: The exterior walls of the parking garage are 8” CMU reinforced with #9 gauge @ 16” c/c. The typical floor slab is a two way post tensioned to 250 psi compressive strength in each direction. The building structure is mainly supported on reinforced concrete columns with a 15’ by 27’ bay system. The typical column size is 24” x 30” with an increase in size to 24” x 54” on the ramp. Reinforced 1’ shear walls are located east and west of the building. In the east they are part of the retaining wall and in the west they comprise the elevator and stair enclosure along with 4 walls that are offsets of the elevator structure and run all the way up the last floor of the tower to form a structural core for the complex.

Condominium Tower: Even though the tower was designed by another engineering and architectural firm than the parking garage, it follows closely in design. There are very limited columns in the design because wide open spaces were a priority in the luxury apartment design. Also, the structure had to carry most of its load in a central core to allow for maximum amount of glass in the exterior surface to take advantage of the ocean views. The entrance to the tower is on the west side of the P1 level of the garage and it sits on a 4” thick slab on grade. The exterior façade is a continuation of the parking garage’s reinforced CMU wall. Interior wall are all reinforced concrete with no columns. Above the eighth level were the first apartment starts, the typical floor slab is 8” two way post tensioned concrete. The building consists primarily of shear and bearing wall made out of reinforced concrete. Four main bearing exterior wall sections on the interior cut-out of the building are 14” thick with #4 reinforcement. The interior walls forming the core around the elevators and stairs and their respective offsets are 1’ wide. The shear wall in the interior run north to south and the exterior shear wall run eat to west.

Mechanical

Parking Garage: The two floors of underground parking facility must be properly ventilated. An all-air system was used for this purpose. Four in-line centrifugal exhaust fans are located in the P1 level, or ground level. The two largest fans are capable of exhausting 27,000 cfm while the other two have a capacity of 12,000 and 15,000 cfm. Each basement floor has a total of 38 exhaust vents, each working at 1230 cfm connected to the main EF by 40”ducts.