In San Antonio, Tex., the former headquarters of CPS Energy, the city’s electric utility, is slated to transform into 100,000 square feet of office and retail space on San Antonio’s famed River Walk. BH Properties recently released its $10 million renovation plan for 146 Navarro.
Constructed in 1987, 146 Navarro has not been updated in decades. With the renovation project, each of the building’s three 28,000-square-foot cantilevered floors of office space will undergo a complete transformation to meet the modern needs of multiple tenants. The design, created by Gensler, takes advantage of the nine-foot floor heights, 1,500-square-foot wraparound patios, and floor-to-ceiling windows offering unobstructed views of the River Walk and downtown San Antonio.
Each of the three office levels will have large, open floorplates with private, stepped-back terraces overlooking the river. The office component will sit on top of the once-private seven-story garage, which will be opened to the public to provide more than 600 parking spaces.
BH Properties will introduce about 20,000 square feet of street-level retail, including a two-story restaurant with views of the river. In addition to the restaurant and bar, the ground floor will be further activated with covered terraces connecting to the River Walk. An enhanced lobby will feature an extruded glass box and metal panels. And BH will create several individual 750- to 1,500-square-foot retail pods on a new pocket park plaza.
The design also will include spaces for murals. Concepts will be sourced through a public art competition organized with Centro San Antonio, a placemaking organization focused on downtown San Antonio.
Building Team:
Owner and developer: BH Properties
Design architect: Gensler
MEP engineer: Alderson & Associates, Inc.
Structural engineer: Architectural Engineers Collaborative
Landscaping: MP Studio
General contractor/construction manager: Skanska
![146 Navarro ext 2](/sites/default/files/inline-images/146%20Navarro%20ext%202.jpg)
![146 Navarro ext 3](/sites/default/files/inline-images/146%20Navarro%20ext%203.jpg)
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Special Recognition: Durrant Group Headquarters, Dubuque, Iowa
Architecture firm Durrant Group used the redesign of its $3.7 million headquarters building as a way to showcase the firm's creativity, design talent, and technical expertise as well as to create a laboratory for experimentation and education. The Dubuque, Iowa, firm's stated desire was to set a high sustainability standard for both itself and its clients by recycling a 22,890-sf downtown buil...
| Aug 11, 2010
Thrown For a Loop in China
While the Bird's Nest and Water Cube captured all the TV coverage during the Beijing Olympics in August, the Rem Koolhaas-designed CCTV Headquarters in Beijing—known as the “Drunken Towers” or “Big Shorts,” for its unusual shape—is certain to steal the show when it opens next year.
| Aug 11, 2010
Top of the rock—Observation deck at Rockefeller Center
Opened in 1933, the observation deck at Rockefeller Center was designed to evoke the elegant promenades found on the period's luxury transatlantic liners—only with views of the city's skyline instead of the ocean. In 1986 this cultural landmark was closed to the public and sat unused for almost two decades.
| Aug 11, 2010
200 Fillmore
Built in 1963, the 32,000-sf 200 Fillmore building in Denver housed office and retail in a drab, outdated, and energy-splurging shell—a “style” made doubly disastrous by 200 Fillmore's function as the backdrop for a popular public plaza and outdoor café called “The Beach.
| Aug 11, 2010
Integrated Project Delivery builds a brave, new BIM world
Three-dimensional information, such as that provided by building information modeling, allows all members of the Building Team to visualize the many components of a project and how they work together. BIM and other 3D tools convey the idea and intent of the designer to the entire Building Team and lay the groundwork for integrated project delivery.
| Aug 11, 2010
Inspiring Offices: Office Design That Drives Creativity
Office design has always been linked to productivity—how many workers can be reasonably squeezed into a given space—but why isn’t it more frequently linked to creativity? “In general, I don’t think enough people link the design of space to business outcome,” says Janice Linster, partner with the Minneapolis design firm Studio Hive.
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Products
14. Mod Pod A Nod to Flex Biz Designed by the British firm Tate + Hindle, the OfficePOD is a flexible office space that can be installed, well, just about anywhere, indoors or out. The self-contained modular units measure about seven feet square and are designed to serve as dedicated space for employees who work from home or other remote locations.