Building a Sustainable Augusta

Should we build local businesses that can finance a downtown revitalization or restore buildings to attract outside companies to move in? As an architect, this may be a surprising answer. Being integrally tied to the construction industry, our profession must develop a deep understanding of boom and bust economic cycles, and in particular recognize that real estate and construction is a support sector of the economy, not an economy unto itself.

It is clear that over the long term, our currently emerging strategy is flawed in that it will perpetuate the outflow of capital from the CSRA. Businesses, for all their flaws, build what they need. Governments build what they think businesses need. If we want to create a sustainable vibrant local economy, we must focus our efforts on supporting local startup businesses that will hire local people and return profits to the local economy. Governments can encourage this development through tax incentives for local investment and grants to support small businesses and research.

If we do this, we will create a lasting prosperity to sustain the long term revitalization of our area and mitigate the extreme cyclical nature of the real estate and construction industries.

Serious Energy select CONima Architects

CONima was recently selected for strategic planning, site acquisition, design, and project management services throughout North America.

We are proud to make our contribution towards green technologies and sustainable construction methods as part of the Serious Energy team.

Lease Negotiations

During the negotiation process of the lease of the property, the landlord is considering providing more money to make improvements if the tenant is willing to upgrade the exterior of the building.

Below is an elevation drawing of the improved exterior of the building.

The design was inspired by California-Mission style architecture. A false wall was created with a parapet extending above the roof to give more presence to the entry and also to create more room for the signage. We re-used the existing columns in the front to form and arbor and added exterior lighting along the walkway to the parking lot.

Space Planning/Schematic Design

This is the architect's plan for the dental surgery. Several changes were made to the owner's original plan.
The entry door was moved from the side to the front of the building to face the street. This made the surgery more inviting and noticeable.

Five consultation rooms were placed around the central garden to give patients a calming, peaceful atmosphere.

A separate children's waiting room away from the adult waiting room was created for children to watch T.V and play computer games.

The reception area was relocated from the center right to the center left of the surgery in between the adult and the children's waiting rooms. A large window opposite the reception would provide plenty of natural light and again a view of the garden.

The restrooms were enlarged and modified to meet accessibility needs for disabled people.

A curved ceiling element running through the length of the surgery was introduced to define areas and circulation paths.

Commercial Lease Negotiations

If there is one thing I wish all clients, brokers, and project managers could understand, it is the critical importance of involving an architect in site selection. During the five years that CONima has been in business, we have saved our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in avoided costs by evaluating buildings prior to signing a lease.

Unfortunately, I've probably seen clients spend well over twice that amount trying to resolve fundamental problems with buildings that went unnoticed because they were not evaluated prior to leasing.

So numbers are easy to throw out and they sound impressive, but they mean very little without understand what an architect actually does during the site selection and lease negotiation phases of a project. For this article, I will focus on tenant improvement related work only, as core and shell construction has an entirely separate set of concerns.

So what are the tasks?

Programming and Fit Planning:
Every client knows how many people they have working for them, and most have an idea how many they want to plan for in the future. However working off of simple ratios of square footage per person ignores office standards, adjacency requirements, ancillary spaces, labs, data centers, etc...all of which are critical components to laying out a space successfully. Unfortunately, once a lease is signed, it is too late to make sure that the building suits your needs, and typically will result in making some level of sacrifice in programmatic functionality of a space.

Egress and Path of Travel:
Nobody would advertise a building that doesn't meet code, right? This is a much more frustrating problem for clients that I've had to resolve for both landlords' and tenants'. The problem is twofold.

• Codes change every few years, and things that were legal when a building was built are no longer so. With the recent adoption of the International Building Code this problem has become so exaggerated that many buildings are no longer considered legal because the method of calculating allowable floor area has now changed. Modifications to the occupancy classification further complicate this, resulting in different exiting and fire rating requirements.
• Subdividing floorspace for multiple tenants is the other major cause of headaches. Code requirements change significantly when trying to exit multiple companies from one building or floor as opposed to just one. In this case the distance between exits, overall exit travel distance, fire protection systems, and fire separations become critical. As a simple rule of thumb, one of my professors once told me,"Draw a fire in front of an exit, now see how many will die as a result. If the answer is more than zero it's your fault."

Accessibility (ADA / Title 24)
This category has unfortunately made a few landlords hate me. Accessibility is a very broad topic, but the priorities to negotiate into a lease are those deficiencies that are the most expensive to repair.

• Bathrooms, not just having a 5ft wide stall, but making sure the toilet is spaced the correct amount from the adjacent wall, are grab bars present, how much clearance is in front of the toilet? How high are the counters? Is there adequate knee space below them? Do the shower dimension comply? Fixture mounting heights? etc... A single bathroom can quickly cost over $100,000 to bring into compliance
• Building Entry, the accessibility requirement for most buildings is to have a fully accessible path to the public way. Most cities will bend this to just require it to the parking lot, but this is not much relief. In California especially, for years California's guidelines differed from federal in how to create a curb ramp to an accessible parking space, causing a great deal of commercial parking lots to currently be illegal. Additionally, the slope of the sidewalk to the building, irregularities in pavers, damaged or raised door tresholds, etc...can also lead to a great deal of remediation work. A recent client had to spend $40,000 repaving the entry plaza to their office because their lease did not include a provision for maintaining and accessible pathway into the building.

Median Price for Homes Sets New Record in June (San Mateo County)

The median price for single-family, re-sale homes rose 4.8% in June from the month before to a new all-time high. It was just $500 shy of $1,000,000. The average price also set a new record, soaring 10.1% from May. Home sales rose 5.8%, month-over-month, but were off 7.3% compared to June 2006. Year-to-date, home sales are off only 5.8%, the best in the Bay Area.


The median price for Condos dropped 2.8% to $605,000, still good enough for an annual gain of 10%. The average price fell 3.7% to $623,918, and was up 5.4% year-over-year. Condo sales rose 29.2% from May, but were off 8.7% year-over-year.


Inventory continued to grow, with single-family homes up 1.2% from May and up 5.3% year-over-year. Condo inventory was up 5.4% month-over-month, and up 2% compared to last May. The sales price to list price ratio fell 1.5 points to 98.5% for homes. The ratio for condos lost 1.4 points to 99.1%. Days of inventory fell five days to 96 for single-family homes. For condos, days of inventory dropped 27 days to 121 for condos.


For buyers, if your credit is a little bit dinged, spend some time improving it. Otherwise, the upper end of the market favors sellers while the lower end favors buyers. For sellers, if you are in the lower end of the market buyers are few and far between. Put your home in mint condition and price it right. If you are in the upper end of the market, it still pays to make your home as presentable as possible, and if you'are in a desirable neighborhood, you will get multiple offers.


The real estate market is very hard to generalize. It is a market made up of many micro markets.

Tip of the Week - 5/27/07

To help prevent slow drains in the kitchen, fill the sink once a month with hot water. Unplug the drain and run the garbage disposal while continuing to run your hot water for one minute.

Tip of the week - 5/20/07

When painting inside your house, use a low sheen paint such as an eggshell or satin finish for most walls, and flat paint for the ceiling. You can then use a semi-gloss for your molding and trim to make it stand out with a richer look.

Tip of the week - 4/22/07

When selecting finish lumber for a project, look for quarter sawn lumber. Unlike plain sawn lumber which has a tendency to twist, cup, and wear unevenly; quarter sawn logs are first divided lengthwise into four pie shape wedges, then each piece of lumber is cut perpendicular to the grain to allow better more even wear, as well as more even grain patterns and reduced shrinkage and swelling.

Birth of the CONima BLOG

It's a firm!!!

Welcome to the CONima blog, gateway to the CONima universe. As a point of introduction, CONima began as a simple idea; the combination of construction and image, a constructed image, CONima. It was a way to exemplify architecture to the world, and to simply (as well as confusingly) explain what it is that I did as a person in architecture first, and at the present time what this firm does. It is repeated in many places, but CONima is the realization of identity through the built form, a constructed image of how you wish to be perceived.

Architecture separates itself from everyday construction by its ability to express something greater than simple enclosure...and that is enough rambling for a newborn.

Learn the basics at http://www.conima.com
more to come...

Eric