The university, located 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, currently offers just one 2,300-stall parking garage, which was constructed in 2008, and two surface lots with a combined capacity of 600 spaces. However, the 1,400-acre campus has changed substantially in the past eight years. New student residences have been constructed — with more in the works — and the university’s recreational facilities have become popular with weekend visitors.

Design development drawings for the new structure, which will replace the two existing surface lots, were submitted in December. Construction drawings and the civil engineering package went into plan check on January 19. Currently, the project is in the first month-long phase of construction, which includes the relocation of critical utilities, as well as the excavation of 120,000 yards of soil. Crews are aiming for an August 2016 completion.

Cal Poly Pomona officials selected Bomel Construction of Anaheim Hills, Calif., and International Parking Design, headquartered in Los Angeles to develop and construct the project, along with Steinberg Architects, which maintains offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose, Calif., as well as Shanghai.

Balancing the university’s need for increased parking with building a structure that did not dominate the landscape proved challenging for the design and construction team. Optimizing the process of loading and unloading of vehicles was another critical function that needed to be integrated. During the competitive proposal process, Bomel Construction’s senior staff hosted workshops at the company’s headquarters where the Cal Poly construction staff detailed what they needed and listened to what Bomel’s suggestions. Ultimately, Bomel’s proposal was the only firm in the field of three bidders that made sure the proposed parking structure had a sufficient number of entrances and exits.

The design-build team devised a plan for a 1,200-foot-long parking structure that will have one underground level, a level at grade and an above ground level that is accessed at grade via the University Drive entrance. The upper level covers about two-thirds of the other levels. An extensively landscaped walkway breaks the garage into two pieces, visually reducing the overall scale while creating an essential pedestrian thoroughfare for campus visitors and students. The property for International Polytechnic High School (I-Poly), a Los Angeles County-owned school with a population of a few hundred students, abuts the lot where the new parking structure will be erected. I-Poly students must have equal access to the college campus since many take courses at Cal Poly at some point during their high school years.

“One of the main reasons we liked Bomel was because they answered all of the questions in the request for proposals,” said Cal Poly Senior Project Manager Bruyn Bevans, who also serves as the coordinator and instructor in the university’s construction management program, in a statement. “Bomel was listening to what we had to say and then came back and gave us new insights about what they could do. They redid the traffic study and told us they felt they needed to do something differently, other than what was shown in the CEQA documents.”

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The 460,000-square-foot structure was built just seven feet from an existing parking garage, and the 290-foot shared border proved to be a challenge. This required crews from Anaheim-based Bomel Construction Co. to work with surgical precision. Despite the spatial constraints, the project wrapped up 13 months and 30 days ahead of schedule, making it the first major project in the school’s capital improvement plan to reach completion.

Bomel credits favorable weather for the quick construction process. “It’s hard to believe when it’s been sunny and 80 degrees a lot this winter, but last year when we started construction it was raining, and it made things difficult and messy,” said Kasey Shay, project manager at Bomel. “We were dealing with tricky foundation issues, especially since we were working in close proximity…to an existing parking structure.” According to Shay, crews had to slot patch next to the existing structure to prevent surging or undermining while foundation work on the new garage was taking place.

The new garage will double the parking capacity of the two existing structures, built in the 1980s and 1990s, to keep pace with the growing campus community. An innovative helix design also improves on these existing resources by allowing drivers to ascend the structure via a ramp on the outside edge of the garage. This design also allows them to avoid driving on each individual floor.

“We have three main shift changes every day, so people are able to get in and out of the garage in a timely fashion,” said Robert Cole, the university’s project manager. “And most people are creatures of habit; they like to park on the same floor. The helix ramp allows them to go directly to their desired floor without having to trudge through each level. They get to their parking stall faster and in an environmentally-sensitive way since less fuel is burned when vehicles arrive at their destination in less time.”

Construction also required the demolition of five university-owned homes and the re-routing of utility and storm drains. Crews removed one existing road and created a new 600-foot replacement to serve as the structure’s entrance. The final phase of the project will include a 300-foot elevated walkway connecting the garage to the campus, which will likely be completed by August 2014.

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