Camp North End – Gama Goat

The existing building was 170,000 square feet and as part of the renovation portions of the building were removed to allow for better neighborhood connectivity and site circulation. The remaining 152,000 square feet has been adaptively reused for shell office space with some smaller retail and food service areas. Where portions of the existing building were removed the concrete, steel, and wood structure was left in place to express elements of the decades-old structure. Elevated walkways around and throughout the building allow for an easy indoor/outdoor experience further emphasizing the neighborhood connectivity.

The “Gama Goat” building is located only one short mile north of the city’s central business district. This building as many others on the 76-acre site was an abandoned warehouse space perfectly positioned to be revitalized as a hub for creativity and innovation. Rather than tearing down what many would see as a blighted building the goal was to repurpose and the mantra became “Keep the Character”. Much of this strategy centers on the raw expression of the many interesting structural systems within the building. The new material palette was limited to largely matching the existing materials. Another guiding principal was the need to break down the scale of these massive buildings to facilitate better scale and connectivity with the surrounding neighborhood. The extension of the road through the Gama Goat building was the major intervention that provides a direct east-to-west pathway through the site for better compartmentalization of the site. The existing building had a mix of Type III-B and Type V-B construction types which presented a multitude of code challenges during the rehab. The road extension, however, was used to bisect the building exactly where we could separate these two construction types. This allowed for a more normal code strategy when considering future tenant improvements. Some of the smaller retail and food service spaces were clad with materials 100% reclaimed from the original building. This project has been the catalyst for the overall larger development and has accelerated the revitalization of the area as a whole.