Multifamily Construction

Photo courtesy of Rafn Co.
The central courtyard at Monica's Village Place 1 has a healing/reflection garden.

Monica's Village Place 1
Rafn Co.


Architect: N3 Architects
Engineer: Fossatti Group
Owner: Catholic Housing Services
ABC members: Adept Mechanical Services, Matheus Lumber Co., Clark Nuber P.S., Coast Crane Co., Custom Sprinkler Co., Evergreen Concrete Cutting, Platinum Group, Propel Insurance, Reprographics Northwest


Monica's Village Place 1 includes three floors of housing over commercial/retail space. It is oriented around a central courtyard containing a play area for children and a healing/reflection garden. There are one, two- and three-bedroom apartments and townhouses, offices for social services, a computer room and a multipurpose community room for residents.

Rafn's participation in preconstruction yielded several cost-saving changes to the design, as well as enhancements. The most notable was reduced parking and a plan to build partially slab-on-grade instead of fully underground. This allowed the team to reduce the depth of excavation and eliminate shoring, which saved the owner $250,000. Another notable Rafn contribution in the preconstruction phase was a redesign of the roof framing system.

When Rafn began earthwork, it discovered storm water lines from the neighboring building that ran through the project site. That issue required a new design. To mitigate the delay, the team created a temporary system that rerouted the water around the excavation site and tied into the existing system on the other side.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 3 program requires that recipients of certain HUD financial assistance provide job training, employment and contract opportunities for low- or very-low-income residents in connection with projects in their neighborhoods. With the help of the entire project team, nearly half of all subcontracted dollars went to Section 3 status contractors.

These high numbers can be directly attributed to Rafn's outreach program.

There were no recordable incidents in the 18,528 hours worked on the project.



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