Hidden Gem.
A private rooftop patio linking three office towers, one L-shaped roof strung between them.
It’s up here, above three downtown office towers, and hardly anyone knows. Hidden in plain sight.
Vacant, and written off.
The Gateway was a dying mall. Downtown called it a ghost town, and the vacant storefronts made the case. Vestar had other plans: somewhere to eat, go out, live and work.
Running most of the work, they set out to take The Gateway well past retail. A big part of the bet: turn those storefronts and the rundown office towers into workspace for tech firms.
WOW Atelier had the interior amenity, The Parlour, and asked us in for the roof right outside it. The brief: turn an overlooked roof into the reason a tech firm signs the lease.
Planters follow the L of the roof: the most green in view, the fewest holes through the slab for irrigation and drainage, and far less spent than it looks.
When we were tasked with designing a seamless interior/exterior space that was cutty, urban, and reminiscent of a secret pocket park that you might stumble upon in a new city, we knew we had to collaborate with Loft Six Four. They bring awesome ideas, energy, and passion to the table on every project we work on with them, and no one does rooftop space better. Full stop. Their team is legit, and we love collaborating with them every chance we get.
One outdoor room above downtown, set up for a quiet coffee first thing, a meeting out in the planting at noon and a warm gathering after dark. Movable seating and the green edge of the L do the work, so the patio flexes without losing its hidden-garden feel.
A roof isn’t the ground.
Anything you build on a roof is harder than the same thing on the ground. Build it on a roof that’s already standing and it gets harder again. You want people who’ve done this before.
Hidden Gem had to be properly green, the kind of place you step out into and breathe. That means planters, and planters mean load, irrigation and drainage, all resolved on the structure.
And it had to run straight out of WOW Atelier’s Parlour with no seam. Their interior, our exterior, one idea.
Amenities that attract.
Talent expects amenities now, and tenants lease where their people want to be. Give people somewhere green to step out into and they stay.
The trick was making a roof feel like nature with only so much room for planters. It got its garden anyway.
It helped bring in new tenants. It’s now the Central Business District’s sole expansive outdoor office patio, one small piece of a tens-of-millions-of-dollars effort to bring The Gateway back, and a piece that pulled its weight.
We’re poised to be the urban extension of Silicon Slopes.
