Westwood, California

URBAN RENEWAL THROUGH AFFORDABILITY IN OLD TOWN KERN

On Wednesday November 2, 2011 atelier V celebrated the grand opening of Baker Street Village Phase I in Bakersfield, California. Attending the ceremonies were dignitaries from the City government including but not limited to Honorable Harvey Hall, the Mayor of Bakersfield, Messieurs Stephen Pelz, Executive Director, and Randy Coats Deputy Director of Planning for Kern County Housing Authority as well as Ms. Donna Kunz, the Redevelopment Agency Director for the City of Bakersfield.

Baker Street Village is a true mixed use master plan community that originally started as a Public-Private partnership between a private developer and the City of Bakersfield’s Redevelopment Agency back in 2007.  The 2008 financial crises took its toll on the project and rendered it economically unfeasible as a private development.  Fortunately,  in early 2010 the Housing Authority of the County of Kern came to the rescue and purchased the project with the new mission of transforming it into Affordable Housing.  Atelier V and the Housing Authority went through a series of cost-cutting value engineering iterations to achieve the new budget objective.  The re-designed began construction in the fall of 2010 and was completed  October of this year.

Baker Street Village is a multi-phase mixed use project. Phase I  is comprised of two distinct housing prototypes.  First (Building A) are a series of twenty four 3-story 3-bedroom townhome units in 4 separate buildings totaling approximately 62,000 sf.  The second part (Building B) of the complex is a 3-story 27,000 sf mixed use building with 13 one-bedroom loft-type units and 10,000 sf of retail on the ground floor along Baker Street. The complex’s various components are connected via pedestrian walkways enhancing the urban character of the project.  The townhome units are designed as walk-ups with the main level approximately 4 feet higher than the pedestrian sidewalk, while the garages are half sunken below grade and accessed from the back side.  Again, the idea was to enhance the pedestrian experience on Lake and King avenues with the structures hugging the property line. The townhome facades are a combination of wood siding and cement plaster with painted wood trims.  The mixed use building (Bldg. B) along Baker street takes on a completely different look while staying true to the urban nature of the project.  Large expanses of glass and corrugated metal panels in combination with cement plaster  add to create the setting for a more sophisticated urban lifestyle.  “We worked closely with the County of Kern Housing Authority officials to try and preserve as much of the original features of the project as possible while meeting new and completely re-defined objectives” Said Mark Vaghei, AIA Principal in Charge of atelier V: architecture (www.atelierv.com)

atelier V looks forward to the implementation of Phase II of Baker Street Village which promises to fill in the missing pieces in the overall strategy of Urban Renewal of Old Downtown Kern.

atelier V: architecture would like to thank Messieurs Stephen Pelz, Randy Coats and Mike Ruiz of the County of Kern Housing Authority for their invaluable efforts to resurrect the project.  We also like to thank Wallace and Smith, the General Contractor and their personnel, Tom McCormick, Ed Felicidario and Ulysses Edralin for all their hard work to build the project.

For more information and photos on this and other atelier V projects, please visit : www.atelierv.com projects/residential/Baker Street Village Phase I (Copyrighted 2011, atelier V, Inc.)

Credits:

atelier V team:  Vanessa Ablegas, Project Manager, Alistair Turner, 3D artist

Structural Engineer :  APSG Engineers , Mr. Avtar Pall, Principal

Civil Engineer :  Porter-Robertson Engineering and Surveying, Inc,  Mr. Matt Carson, Project Manager