PROJECT OVERVIEW
Latitude Apartments is a 12-story, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly luxury apartment community situated directly across from the Virginia Square Metro in Arlington, Virginia.
Located within the bustling Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, the sophisticated property features 265 market-rate apartments, 14 affordable units, and four stories of below-grade-parking, with multiple bus stops, and frequented Arlington establishments, in a coveted, trending neighborhood.
The building is comprised of 3,011 square feet of leasable retail space and 2,675 square feet of cultural and educational use space on the ground floor.
This Davis Carter Scott design built for Greystar Apartment Communities features a sophisticated look and an extensive library of amenities, including a rooftop plaza – complete with fireplace, grills, movie wall, and bocce court – fitness center, dog wash room, and 12th floor party room.
PRECAST SOLUTION
The two residential buildings called for nearly 70,000 square feet of precast panels. 749 architectural panels of non-pigmented precast concrete with a smooth acid wash finish—which required careful control of fine and course aggregates before batching— were positioned and installed to maintain the property’s natural look and feel.
The design team requested the corner column covers be constructed as one unit, so large L-shaped panels were braced up to the point of being set on the building. Balconies required understructure work, so precast concrete was the ideal approach for the minimal headroom and limited site access.
The complex rooftop installation process demanded perfect harmony between two tower cranes and an assist crane. To add a twist, the CIP schedule was changed to alternate pouring between towers, so the precast producer followed their progress in a complex collaborative arrangement, repeatedly jumping back and forth between rooftops. Connections were also designed to install precast panels on the sloped columns of the rooftop pavilion area. Smith-Midland’s goal was to get product up as close to the CIP work as possible, due to the cost of the contractor carrying the cost of two tower cranes. Smith-Midland was able to maintain a schedule that met the requested removal date of each of these two cranes, despite these conditions that worked against them. The project was completed on time.
In a record eight-day construction phase review time, Latitude earned LEED® Gold certification and features a variety of sustainable design aspects. The precaster utilized a pre-installation field survey and layout to ensure that each of the 749 pieces fit in their proper locations to create an elegant façade for the apartments.
The designers also worked closely with subcontractors to find the most cost-effective way to achieve the ideal aesthetic appearance, which coupled precast with EIFS in a close working relationship. The teaming of trade materials created seamless transitions for large projections and features that may have otherwise been cost prohibitive.
“The design of the building had to be very efficient for the owner’s discretion, but at the same time we had to strive to become an iconic piece of architecture within Arlington. For a residential building of this type, we thought that creating the block look was modern, while enhancing it with the extended balconies that are projecting and the embellishments of the orange fins really brought together a nice, modern look to the design.” – Steve Saville, Project Director, DCS Design |