PMA hopes to break ground on Tierra Place this summer

A bit of detail here, some city approval there and PMA Consultants will be ready to build its Tierra Place in downtown Ann Arbor by July.

 

“Nothing is finalized yet,” says John Zann, project manager for the development. “We’re still working through some issues.”

 

Chief among those issues are the city’s approval on some small changes to the $9.6 million project. PMA hopes to have everything wrapped up by early summer. Construction is expected to take one year to finish.

 

The Ann Arbor-based consulting firm is building the 8-story mid-rise on the corner of West Washington and Ashley streets. It features 30,000 square feet of office, residential and retail space. PMA is giving the building a number of environmentally friendly features to show that building green can be done at the same price as constructing a conventional building.

 

The building will use 65 percent less energy than a conventional building in Michigan. Most of that savings, about 35 percent, will come from passive design techniques, such as allowing the building to be warmed by the sun during the cold months and cooled by passing breezes in hot months.

 

It will also employ green features, such as green roofs and wind turbines on top of the building that will look like smoke stacks. PMA expects to get 10 percent of its energy from such renewable sources. It also plans to capture and use all of its storm water runoff while reducing its demand for potable water by 50 percent compared to normal, similar structures.

 

Tierra Place will feature retail space on the first two floors for a small-nice grocery store and café, similar to Whole Foods. Office space will be reserved for the third, fourth and fifth floors for PMA. Six luxury condos will be built on the sixth, seventh and eighth floors. A roof pavilion will be built for both residents and office tenants. An underground parking garage will provide seven spaces, while bike racks will be built in both the garage and the street sidewalks.

 

Source: John Zann, project manager for PMA Consultants
Writer: Jon Zemke