The local office of Texas- and California-based architecture company LPA Inc. recently moved to a new Southtown location, which the company helped redesign from a vacant retail building.
The building, at 1811 S. Alamo St., had sat vacant for four years before being repurposed into a collaborative workspace to house LPA's growing team of architects, interior designers, landscape architects and engineers. The one-story, 10,300-square-foot building was built in 1950 and was last assessed at $780,000, according to the Bexar County Appraisal District.
The redeveloped building now incorporates landscaped courtyards with bioretention features to filter stormwater and reduce pollutants before water is discharged into the San Antonio River. It also features photovoltaic solar panels that produce 50 percent of the energy needed to run the office, natural daylight from existing high-volume windows and automatic daylight harvesting sensors to manage the consumption of energy from lighting, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounded by perforated metal creating the entry and providing a connection from the outside of the street-facing building.
LPA will be taking 8,000 square feet of the building, while the remaining 2,300 square feet will be used for a future retail tenant. The building was renovated by Metropolitan Contracting Company.
