McCarthy Cook co-president Ed Cook tells GlobeSt.com that when it bought the two-building, 750,000-sf China Basin Landing development in 1997, it found that the Berry Building was built with a 10-inch reinforced concrete slab as its roof. Eventually, they discovered that the building was designed to support a parking structure on its roof, which meant it had the vertical loading capacity for an addition. Modern code, however, requires a building have not only the vertical loading capacity but also the ability to take a horizontal load--the kind created by earthquakes.

The $90-million expansion will utilize a new structural isolation system that will result in the entire structure having the earthquake resistance of a mission critical facility such as a datacenter. Moreover, it will be expanded without having to relocate any of the tenants in the Berry Building, which is essentially 100% leased to a mix of office, research and medical clinical space users, including UCSF, which keeps its radiology department and related clinical labs in the building.

The addition is designed to accommodate both life sciences tenants and office tenants. Cook says an interstitial floor between the roof of the existing building and the newly created floors will house mechanical/plumbing systems and provide duct/chase area for specialized tenant applications. The addition also will create an extensive usable rooftop area for mechanical/reserve power systems.