Brown Construction, along with owner partners Shea Properties and Ivanhoe Cambridge and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, were honored at today's grand opening of Ascent Apartments. Brown Construction received high praise from the ownership group for their excellent performance on the project. Ascent Apartments is a GreenPoint Rated, 650-unit luxury apartment community in San Jose, CA, that is rich in resident amenities including a resort-style pool and spa, numerous fountains and fire features, outdoor kitchens and entertainment areas, a 4,000sf fitness center, expansive resident lounge, business center and office pods, and a half-acre park. From a construction standpoint, the project comprised 1.3 million square feet as two 5-story wood-framed buildings which wrapped around two seven-story concrete parking garages. "Ascent really sets the bar when it comes to resort-style living in South San José," said Colm Macken, President and Chief Executive Officer of Shea Properties. "We couldn't be more pleased with the positive response from the community and leasing has been brisk." Jeff Cunningham, Senior Vice President of Shea Properties offered this high praise of Brown Construction, Inc., the project's general contractor: Brown Construction, Inc. performed very well and handled all the costs with complete transparency. We had a major budget issue once the plans were complete and went out for final sub bids. They helped us cut a lot of costs and bring the project back into budget through effective value engineering with the trades. They have a very good estimating department that made this happen. We challenged them with a very complicated schedule of values effort and they followed suit, whereas many other general contractors would not have worked with us so well. Their field management including safety and quality control were very good and their management of several difficult subcontractors was professional and effective. We would use Brown Construction again in the East Bay and Central Valley areas.
