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Project Location:  San Leandro, California

Project Size:  4,300SF

Date completed:  November 2008

Client:  Wachovia

Contact:  James Yanagitsubo - High Rise Project Manager

Additional Information:

Wachovia, now a Wells Fargo company is one of North America’s largest and most diverse financial services companies, offering a multitude of banking and financial resources to help their customers reach their financial goals. They now have more than 11,000 retail banks and more than 12,000 ATMs across North America and internationally. As part of their support systems Wachovia occupies a 143,000SF operations facility in San Leandro, CA.

FENNIE+MEHL Architects has designed a number of renovations for this facility including a Conference Center and Café for the onsite employees. The 4,300SF facility includes three conference rooms which are sized for meetings of 8-10, 14-18 and 20-30 people respectively. The food service portion accommodates seating for 65 people in a variety of seating configurations, providing for both group lunches or quiet, contemplative rest.

The kitchen/prep area is designed for employees to self-prepare lunches and is equipped with multiple microwave ovens, refrigerator and other appliances. There is also a dedicated vending area which is visually separated form the seating and preparation areas.

Conceptually the Café was designed as a counterpoint to the typical office areas throughout the building. Due to the building’s size and shape many staff positions have limited access to natural light and the Café provides a much-needed relief for employees by offering a light, and lively space with lot’s of access to natural light. This quality of space was achieved by developing a “see-though” quality for the three conference rooms by the use of frameless floor-to-ceiling glass for the partitions and doors separating the rooms from the dining areas. The vending area was purposely pulled toward the interior and separated visually to provide an organized and dedicated place for the machines which did not interfere with the dining or conference areas. The vending area was then shaped as a circular organizing form and the sweeping arc of the ceiling soffit give a pleasant flow to the space.

The color and materials palette was also developed to juxtapose the building standard palette as a form of visual relief and to provide variety. Ceramic wall tiles, contrasting seamless resilient flooring cut in a sympathetic arc adds to the flow and lively and cheerful quality of the space.