The SoHay project, located in South Hayward, California, comprises approximately 25 acres of property that combines several disparate parcels formerly owned by the City/State transportation department into a cohesive residential neighborhood by connecting them all with a unifying park and trail system. This project required a collaboration of many different entities. Milbrandt Architects was responsible for the design and implementation of the mixed-use portion along the main urban corridor of Mission Blvd.

The mixed-use portion of the project consists of two 63,250 SF buildings, each with a full basement parking garage that is accessed below a central public plaza between the buildings. Wood-framed residential units sit above a concrete post-tensioned slab over the parking and retail floors below.

A significant portion of the residential apartments were developed to fill a unique affordable housing type that was new to the City. The commercial use is designed to be flexible enough to accommodate office, retail or even restaurant space. Not only is the infrastructure in place to support any of these uses, a potential to integrate with the open spaces and public plazas surrounding the buildings is also designed into several of the commercial spaces. Projecting steel canopies create a protected pedestrian walk along the street front, further integrating the interior and exterior space.

Jim Lawler acted as project manager and attended all meetings from design development through construction including creating the construction documents, handling all meeting minutes, RFI’s, ASI’s and CCD correspondence. Ground work began on the mixed-use buildings in spring of 2019. Construction is scheduled to continue through 2020.