OCEANSIDE, CA - A planned senior living community at Mission San Luis Rey would be built with a new "green" technology that would be the first large-scale use of its kind in California, officials said last week. The project is a joint venture between the mission and SG Blocks LLC, a partnership of companies that promote ecologically friendly building technology.
SG Blocks was formed last year and turns the traditional concept of metal or wood framing on its head, said Bruce Russell, a managing partner with the Colorado-based company. Instead of using new materials, the company takes old metal shipping containers and welds them together to frame homes and buildings. "We're taking a product that has had a full, useful life and putting it to a higher, better use," Russell said. The Oceanside City Council should vote on the project this fall and construction could start by the end of the year, Russell said.
While the technology has been used to build some single-family homes in this state, it has mostly been used on the East Coast for homes and projects such as an administrative building in Fort Bragg, N.C. Mission San Luis Rey administrator Ed Gabarra said Friday that the green construction fits with the mission's earth-friendly goals. "The construction is supposed to very unique," said Gabarra. "It's quite ingenious."
The planned senior living community, called The Villa at Mission San Luis Rey, has been in the works for several years, but is nearing the end of the planning process, Russell said. It will be built on seven acres in the mission's southwest corner, and is part of a master plan for the mission property approved by the Oceanside City Council in 2003. The historical mission, founded by the Franciscans in 1798, is the largest of the 21 California missions. It sits just off Highway 76 and Rancho Del Oro Drive.
The Villa will be open to all faiths and aims to generate a little extra revenue to make other projects at the mission possible, Russell said. The project's high-end architecture is geared to complement the mission. The senior community will stand on land that used to be an old fruit grove that was watered from the mission's Lavenderia, an open-air laundry where Luiseno Indians washed clothing.
Russell said there are already seniors expressing interest in the community, which will have about 180 independent living units ranging from one to three bedrooms. There will also be 40 assisted living units, which may serve seniors with Alzheimer's disease, and there will likely be some skilled nursing suites added, Russell said. All the units will be rental units, he said, adding that it's way too early to know what the rents might be. "We're telling people the cost will be comparable to one of the better, top notch senior living communities," he said.
Residents won't even notice the unique framing, Russell said, which is created from containers that are 40 feet long, 8 feet wide and 9.5 feet tall. He said the process takes about 5 percent of the energy that would be used to melt the containers down. "The way we're looking at it, it's a pretty fantastic system," he said, explaining that using the metal containers allows construction to be finished in 30 percent of the time it would take for normal construction and at a 5 percent to 10 percent savings. "This building will be in the $45 million range, so that percentage becomes a significant number," Russell said.
The cargo boxes are good for building because they're modular, waterproof, strong and have four steel bars when the sides are removed that allow them to be stacked up to nine units high. The technology was first tested in South Carolina four years ago when it was used to build a house for Charleston resident Magoline Hazelton, according to the Charleston R
Source: North County Times