McCarthy Building Companies Inc. has topped out construction on the new $20 million, five-level, 293,000-square-foot Oregon Street parking garage for the City of Chandler, which includes a road realignment along Oregon Street as well as intersection improvements at Arizona Avenue and Chicago Street.
Upon completion in November 2019, this will be Downtown Chandler’s largest garage with 932 parking spaces, adding much needed parking options for those accessing City Hall as well as restaurants and other venues in the bustling area. The structure is located to the west of City Hall across Arizona Avenue on the northwest corner of Chicago and Oregon streets.
“The Downtown is the heart and urban core of our City,” said Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke. “With New Square opening later this year, along with the new additions to our Historic Square, free parking will always be a welcomed and important amenity for our residents, businesses and visitors. Congratulations to McCarthy on this milestone and we’re looking forward to celebrating the garage’s opening this fall.”
Now that topping out is completed, the team will focus on interior rough-in, exterior skin, site work and off-site improvements with the most critical being the completion of the Arizona Avenue intersection improvements that will take place over the summer.
“The topping out represents a critical milestone in the project meaning we’ve reached structural completion for all five floors of the garage,” said Brittany Calbert, project manager for McCarthy Building Companies, which is building the project as part of a design-build process that allowed the project team to design, price (GMP) and permit the project in less than five months. “Additionally, McCarthy has been able to utilize our self-perform team for cast-in-place concrete as well as electrical and mechanical work, which has provided added value in the form of cost savings, quality control and schedule acceleration to the City on this project.”
The project will provide an enhanced pedestrian connection between downtown Chandler and the New Square development to the east of the parking structure with the potential for future ground-floor retail within the parking structure. Additionally, this parking garage has more architectural and art elements than any other garage McCarthy has built in the Southwest region. Incorporated features include a concrete form liner along the perimeter walls, as well as three different types of metal panels including mesh fabric along the stairs where color changing LED lighting will be displayed. Due to the City of Chandler’s requirements to include art in every downtown project, the team was able to allocate funds toward functional aspects that include pedestrian benches and louvered canopies designed by coLab Studio and Jeff Zischke.
Construction of the garage and adjacent New Square development took away surface parking that had been available on these parcels. Downtown Chandler patrons and visitors are encouraged to use the four free parking garages located downtown, including the Overstreet parking garage at Buffalo and Oregon streets and the parking garage south of Chandler City Hall. A free shuttle service that takes people from the garages to downtown establishments also is available from 5-9 p.m. Thursday and 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.