PROJECT
hvac
Below. Twenty-two tankless Noritz water heaters were mounted on the roof, with pipe runs from the units going through the building’s top level to the kitchens and shops at ground level.
4th Street Market in Santa Ana, CA, is a 30,000 sq.-ft. street-level emporium designed to attract a young clientele seeking groundbreaking cuisine from talented young chefs lacking the wherewithal to go solo.
Tankless Water Heaters Serve Trendy Culinary Center Food emporium uses rooftop tankless units to deliver on-demand hot water and individual tenant billing.
P
lumber Sam Crandall remembers the job at the
CA. The “vision” Crandall credits belongs to entrepre-
concept to help defer a lot of the startup costs and over-
4th Street Market in Santa Ana, CA, “as kind of
neur and chief strategist Ryan Chase, S&A principal and
head these chefs face when they want to open a restaurant.
a beast of a project.” Not that the contractor hes-
owner of the 4th Street Market, a new-wave food hall and
The idea is to make it as simple and clean as possible…”
itated in taking on the job when it was offered to him— even after learning that other contractors had chosen not to get involved.
Now fully operational, the facility consists of 15 differ-
culinary center in Downtown Santa Ana (DTSA). The Chase family traces its ongoing involvement in
ent artisan food vendors occupying roughly 300 sq. ft.
DTSA back nearly a century, to 1919, when Ryan’s great
apiece and with funky names such as Electric City Butch-
“We tend to get calls for jobs others don’t want,” ex-
grandfather opened a shoe store there. In recent years,
er, Radical Botanicals, Chunk-N-Chip, and Noodle
plained Crandall, who owns Crandall’s Plumbing in near-
Santa Ana’s East End District—once known as Fiesta Mar-
Tramp. The largest player in the space is East End Incuba-
by Huntington Beach. “We’re used to handling all kinds
ketplace—has undergone a dramatic, multi-million-dollar
tor Kitchens, offering 10 commercial rental kitchens, in-
of installation challenges.”
revitalization into “an urban oasis for up-and-coming
cluding three for gluten-free cooking and one for confec-
restaurants, retailers, and entertainment venues,” accord-
tionery items. All are intended exclusively for young
ing to Chase.
masters-in-the-making to hone their culinary skills and
The challenges at the 4th Street project involved techniques that Crandall and his technicians had not previously encountered, “and don’t come along everyday,” he admitted.
The newest addition to this trending scene is the 4th
build local customer followings.
Street Market—a 30,000 sq.-ft. street-level emporium, de-
Combining all of these food venues into a single space
“We were turning the first level of a 30-year-old,
signed to attract a young clientele seeking groundbreaking
on one level—and the special mechanical requirements
two-story building into something totally modern and
cuisine from talented young chefs lacking the wherewith-
that resulted—are what drove the plumbing design and in-
different, making it impossible to anticipate every little
al to go solo. Inspired by well-known food markets such as
stallation challenges for the Crandall’s Plumbing crew.
thing. Plans changed daily. All we could do was rely on
Pike’s Place in Seattle and Grand Central Market in Los
This was especially true for the building’s domestic
our knowledge of the local codes and design-engineer the
Angeles, 4th Street Market is devoted to food and the peo-
hot-water system, an obviously critical need for all 22
thing as we went along. Their vision of the final structure
ple who make it—and make it special—as Chase told Or-
food-service tenants in the market.
got a little tricky,” continued Crandall, speaking of the
ange County’s Coast Magazine, “Food was always the
building’s highly creative ownership. “But I believed in
driving force. But part of the challenge with the cut-
UP ON THE ROOF
what they were doing, and that made it fun. There was
ting-edge food business is that these chefs are very cool
The year-round warm climate of Southern California of-
always light at the end of the tunnel.”
and very hip, but they don’t know how to run a business
fers the luxury of locating building mechanical systems
and they have no capital. So we created an incubator-type
outdoors—in this case, on the roof—and S&A Manage-
The “they” refers to S&A Management, Costa Mesa,
commercialarchitecturemagazine.com
MAY 2017
COMMERCI A L A RCHI T EC T URE
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