616 Oberlin

The recently completed 616 Oberlin Apartments project in the Cameron Village area of Raleigh is a great example of how collaboration is a hallmark of the NV5 philosophy.  Planning for this project began in 2013 when Wood Partners started the evaluation of a property with an office building that was at the end of its useful life.  Environmental evaluations of the property included a Phase I environmental site assessment, along with an evaluation of the presence of asbestos-containing materials in the building, and evaluating possible concerns with a former underground fuel storage tank that had been previously removed from the property.  After determining that the environmental conditions were generally favorable, we embarked on a subsurface investigation to see if the conditions could support the expected heavy loads for a precast parking deck structure that would be connected to a multi-story, split-level wood framed apartment building.  After extensive field and laboratory testing was completed, we recommended the use of rammed aggregate piers for the project, and coordinated with GeoStructures to develop an appropriate rammed aggregate pier system that would limit total settlement for the heavy column loads (1,400,000 pounds) and wall loads (55,000 pounds per linear foot), as well as limit differential settlement between the parking structure and the wood-framed apartment building.  Coordination with a soil-nail contractor was also needed to evaluate a temporary earth retaining system that would allow excavation along the northern property line for installation of the lower level of the parking structure.  When access concerns required that an adjoining property be purchased, we jumped back in with additional environmental assessments to make short work of our assessments on the tight time schedule needed to keep the project moving forward.  Extensive construction materials testing and Special Inspections were performed during construction, including soils and foundation testing, monitoring installation of the rammed aggregate pier systems, monitoring soil-nail wall construction, concrete quality control testing, post-tensioned slab foundation testing and inspections, structural steel testing, and extensive wood-framing evaluations.  This project was completed in 2017.