Rounding Third

7/7/10

Scott and I are putting our work together tomorrow into a presentation format.  He is finalizing the numbers and market research.  I will be putting together the property information and regulatory side.  Which brought me to the following…

I just spoke to Mr. David Hall, Assistant Director over Development.  I wanted to get a more assured answer to the question we posed Mrs. Burghdoff, is there “a way to have a certificate of occupancy (C of O) for each function that our building was capable of providing?”  The short answer is yes, but it would be very difficult.

Our conversation was short, but was packed with a lot of information, much of which I am still trying to assimilate.  Mr. Hall said that if you go into the project with the mindset that the building will have different uses, the building can be designed to accommodate the differing code requirements.  Of course there are some uses that are so far apart in their requirements that it might be nearly impossible to make a project work, he used the example of residential and assembly spaces.  I asked if the building met the most stringent code requirements for each use could a Certificate of Occupancy be issued for all the uses.  His answer sounded like a yes, but with great difficulty.  Ninety nine (99%) percent of the time this might work, just those occasional code discrepancies that could cause potential issues.

Mr. Hall mentioned receiving a C of O for the entire building and separate C of O’s for the individual spaces (eg. a strip center).  But with this option, unless the tenants are known ahead of time, a new C of O would need to be acquired when the use changes. At the moment there is not a Certificate of Occupancy for multiple use types.  Which led me to ask about live/work spaces and he chuckled with an attitude as if to say “it ain’t there yet.”  He did say that the codes are working toward creating a C of O for these types of spaces. 

What would be really be more beneficial to get a clear yes or no answer on having multiple C of Os at one time for the same spaces/building, would be to meet with him one on one pitching our idea for multiple uses and multiple C of O’s.

Since Saturday’s class, I have redrawn the plan and reworked the Photoshop image.  I also have finally joined the Urban Land Institute (ULI).