Southridge Shopping Center - South Asheville, North Carolina
Collett & Associates, Bob Stultz
Scope of Services:
Paris Projects provided the complete site work and building design coordination, contractor prequalification’s, bidding, and contracting and construction management from start to finish. Very sever existing grades and the existence of very dense rock made the site development for this project very challenging. We had to work with the FAA to relocate large communication towers on top of a mountain that we had to blast and cut down to create fill and a flat area for the construction of the project. We managed the new construction of the relocated towers while programming this major work into the overall program schedule. During the initial due diligence and site design, we employed the use of seismology or sound waves, similar to sonar, to help evaluate and determine the amount of anticipated rock blasting and removal so contractors could have some idea of how to price and bid.
To provide sewer to the site, we had to obtain a permit from the State DOT to bore the International Highway 26, then run sewer lines several miles offsite through adjacent neighborhoods. This was a very time intensive and complicated approval process, not to mention boring under a Federal Highway.
We helped implement several unique designs and construction methods that ended up saving the project millions of dollars in site work costs. The grading designs required us to blast over 500,000cy of rock. In addition to using the rock in deep fills, we initiated the contractor to setup a rock crushing plant on site and used our onsite rock for paving and building pad stone that would otherwise have had to be hauled into the site, one truck at a time, from an offsite quarry. There were huge savings in costs and time.
Halfway through the project, Lowes Home Improvements wanted to come to the project, but we did not have enough room to shoehorn them on the end of the site without constructing retaining walls over 90’ high which would again costs millions of dollars. We worked with the geotechnical and wall engineer and came up with a Roadway/Highway construction technique to again, utilize the massive onsite rock to construct what is called “Rock Buttress” construction. Basically, the rock was used as a massive gravity wall that allowed us to delete the retaining walls entirely, while adding enough developable area to add a 116,000 sf Lowes store to the overall project proforma!
I think the challenges of the project would have horrified 90% of the developers out there and it has been a very profitable project for the Owner.
