JFK Towers, 2451 Sacramento St, SF

project description
John F. Kennedy Towers provides housing for low-income seniors. Ownership of the 12-story, 60,000 sf residential building with 98 apartments is being transferred from the City of San Francisco’s Mayor’s Office of Housing to Mercy Housing, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing affordable, low-income housing. As a part of this transfer, the building, designed in 1966, is being completely renovated; the renovations include accessibility and life safety upgrades.

RCG is providing complete structural engineering services which included a seismic evaluation of the building structure and the design of necessary structural strengthening. The building structure consists of all cast-in-place reinforced concrete construction. The basis for the seismic evaluation and retrofit is ASCE 41-13. Subject to an earthquake with a 20% probability of exceedance (POE) in 50 years, the target performance level is Life Safety; subject to an earthquake with a 5% POE in 50 years, the target performance level is Collapse Prevention. Both the Linear Static Procedure and the Linear Dynamic Procedure (with multiple time history ground motion records) was used to evaluate the reinforced concrete walls. Seismic strengthening is being designed with glass fiber reinforced polymer sheets to provide an economical solution to the retrofit of the walls and concrete spandrels.

RCG also provided structural engineering for a new community room addition on the north side of the tower, new roof davit system for window washing, and various site improvements. Plan check and construction phase services are also included.
property owner
Mercy Housing, San Francisco
architect
Paulett Taggart Architects, San Francisco
completion date
2018