Project Overview
Lake House is a nine-story, mixed-use, multifamily project located in Ivanhoe Village on the shores of Lake Ivanhoe in downtown Orlando, Fla. The nine-story luxury towers feature 252 custom-home-level apartment and townhome units and more than 36,000 ft2 of ground-level commercial space and structured parking.
Ivanhoe Village is one of downtown Orlando’s main street districts, known for its unique art deco architecture, parks and recreation, and eclectic bar and restaurant scene. Because of the artistic and significant nature of the site, the Lake House project team sought input from local stakeholders before breaking ground.
Through the conceptual design phase, Orlando business owners and residents worked directly with the developer and designers to formulate a design based on two guiding principles: honor the neighborhood’s historical character and create a new city landmark.
The team used building information modeling (BIM) and virtual reality (VR) software to walk Orlando residents through a virtual model of the design, which gave them an exact idea of what the building would look like and how it would impact the skyline once completed.
Urban gardens
Finfrock used the company’s DualDeck Building System to deliver a total precast, prestressed concrete solution for the project. The system allows for exceptionally long, column-free spans for optimal flexibility and open spaces. The modular building design minimized site disruption, accelerated construction, and provided a timely schedule for the hundreds of subcontractors employed on the project.
Early on, the designers faced challenges in creating the attached parking garage and private resident entry, which were important design features for both residents and commercial tenants. Given the site’s constraints, the design for the parking structure initially made it impossible for specific second-floor units to have balconies. However, the designers modified the design using BIM to create unique, two-story townhome units that offer the only suburban-garden-style units in Orlando’s urban center.
Pandemic-related delays in delivery of the high-end finishes and materials proposed for the kitchens and bathrooms also posed a challenge for both timing of construction and the delivery date promised to the owner. All materials used within the design of the units are custom made with exclusive materials shipped from overseas.
Although standard stock finishes were available domestically, the entire property was designed to be luxury living with well-appointed amenities, so shortcuts were not an acceptable option. To mitigate the impact of delays, crews worked long hours in the last weeks of the project to get the finishes installed.
Despite pandemic-driven-delays and jobsite challenges, Lake House met on-time and on-budget delivery goals, leasing units just eight months after the last structural piece was placed. |