By selecting La Alameda as an honorable mention winner, our SADI judges were making a statement that just because a project doesn’t have a massive design budget and isn’t aimed at catering to the well-heeled doesn’t mean that you still can’t create a memorable project. There are drawbacks, such as the retailers’ insistence to use standard signage rather than catering it to the project. Yet overall the center is evidence of great care taken by the developer and architect to create a community space in an area where one in four people live below the poverty line and 16.4 percent of the population is unemployed. The design also nicely reflects the regional aesthetic and, as one judge wrote, “sets a very good precedent.”
Project Name
La Alameda Regional
Shopping Center
Location
Walnut Park, Calif.
Square Footage
241,000 square feet
Architect
Nadel Architects Inc.
Developer/Owner
Primestor Development
Credits
Landscape Architect
LRM Landscape
Architecture
Civil Engineer
DRC
Contractor
Ed Grush General
Contractor Inc.+