When people think of mixed use office and residential, it is almost always with a vision of a “mom and pop” arrangement with housing above commercial businesses. A twist on the usual planning code interpretation at 385 Sherman was key to creating a better neighborhood and one of the most profitable commercial office projects in Palo Alto.
385 Sherman is a new three story mixed-use building over two levels of underground parking. Building residential next to, not on top of Visa’s R&D workplace avoided the awkwardness of shared elevators and oversized-yet-undesirable apartments, and instead created the most gracious floor-to-floor heights in the area and allowed for four light-filled town houses that face a public park.
The residential wing, leased as corporate housing, is two stories located on the southeast corner of the site with front entrances on the ground floor facing Sarah Wallis Park. The commercial office portion of the building inhabits the rest of the site. With this configuration, everyone enjoys tall windows. The corporate housing units get views of the park, and floors two and three enjoy landscaped roof decks that create indoor outdoor rooms for the office workers.
View of the park from the town house roof, which doubles as an outdoor space for the adjacent office building. The existing park was renovated by the city to match the quality of brick’s new development.
Consultant Team: Civil: Sandis | General Contractor: South Bay Construction | Structural: ZFA | MEP: WSP, Silicon Valley Mechanical | Lighting: WSP
When people think of mixed use office and residential, it is almost always with a vision of a “mom and pop” arrangement with housing above commercial businesses. A twist on the usual planning code interpretation at 385 Sherman was key to creating a better neighborhood and one of the most profitable commercial office projects in Palo Alto.
Building residential next to, not on top of Visa’s R&D workplace avoided the awkwardness of shared elevators and oversized-yet-undesirable apartments, and instead created the most gracious floor-to-floor heights in the area and allowed for four light-filled town houses that face a public park.
385 Sherman is a new three story mixed-use building over two levels of underground parking. Building residential next to, not on top of Visa’s R&D workplace avoided the awkwardness of shared elevators and oversized-yet-undesirable apartments, and instead created the most gracious floor-to-floor heights in the area and allowed for four light-filled town houses that face a public park.
The residential wing, leased as corporate housing, is two stories located on the southeast corner of the site with front entrances on the ground floor facing Sarah Wallis Park. The commercial office portion of the building inhabits the rest of the site. With this configuration, everyone enjoys tall windows.
The corporate housing units get views of the park, and floors two and three enjoy landscaped roof decks that create indoor outdoor rooms for the office workers. The rendering below shows a view of the park from the town house roof, which doubles as an outdoor space for the adjacent office building. The existing park was renovated by the city to match the quality of brick’s new development.
Consultant Team: Civil: Sandis | General Contractor: South Bay Construction | Structural: ZFA | MEP: WSP, Silicon Valley Mechanical | Lighting: WSP
