GEONotes

Construction of a 1.2 million square foot warehouse in Pennsylvania was nearing completion when portions of the building were observed to be experiencing an alarming amount of differential settlement. When an insurance claim was filed, GEODesign was retained by the insurance company to investigate the cause of the settlement and recommend remediation measures. Some portions…

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Most Vermonters would say it started raining in mid-June and never really stopped. By early July, western Vermont began to see the first of the rising waters. Heavy rains began statewide on July 9th, and steadily increased as the storm system stalled. Over the next 36 hours, the peaks of the Green Mountains were to…

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The beautiful marble exterior of the Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) building, located in Salem, Oregon’s capital city, makes it a sight to behold. It was originally built in 1936 as a post office and, as part of a renovation and seismic retrofit of the building, new footings and shear walls were required. Construction…

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Savings Bank of Danbury (SBD) will construct a new, multistory office building in the heart of downtown Danbury, Connecticut. The building will have a newly excavated basement level, and it will be necessary to preserve the integrity of adjacent historic structures during demolition of several existing buildings. GEODesign mobilized their geotechnical and environmental services to provide…

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The widening of the existing Long Island Railroad (LIRR) Atlantic 6 Bridge, which spans the Van Wyck Expressway and frontage roads, included new bridge abutments and a center pier. The widening was also performed very close to active LIRR tracks. The support of excavation (SOE) system in the contract documents included soldier piles with tiebacks.…

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GEOMechanics was retained by geotechnical contractor, PLI Systems, to assist the City of Gresham, Oregon to stabilize a failing 25-foot-high steep slope behind three private residential homes along SE Greenway Drive. A landslide occurred behind one of the residences in June 2022 and the slopes behind the other two residences exhibited evidence of past instability and…

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Resilient Modulus is a direct measure of the stiffness of the soil base and subgrade materials underlying a pavement, and is a vital parameter for pavement designs. Commonly used field and laboratory methods to determine this parameter can be time consuming and cost prohibitive. As a result, the resilient moduli of these materials are often…

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As geotechnical engineers, we are not unfamiliar with filling holes. Although, we are not sure if we had ever filled a hole this size before. Last September, Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc at the TPC River Highlands Golf Course in Cromwell, CT. Overnight, torrential surface runoff washed away the fine sand within the riverbank into the…

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GEODesign is ready for the changes! The 2022 NYC Building Code (Code) will go into effect on Monday, November 7, 2022. Many changes and additions will be implemented in the new Code. GEODesign is preparing for the change and our complete geotechnical, SOE, underpinning, and temporary structure engineering design and construction inspection services will provide…

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GEODesign’s Soil & Rock Experts are Digging Deeper into the Pacific Northwest! GEODesign, Inc., DBA GEOMechanics, is a prominent geotechnical, environmental consulting and construction engineering firm digging deeper into the Northwest market with their newest acquisition of the long-standing Portland institution, Alder Geotechnical Services. The expansion of GEODesign’s coast-to-coast services is in-line with their pragmatic,…

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Good News for Our Clients! Connecticut legislative actions have set the groundwork for sunsetting the Property Transfer Act and replacing it with a new release-based environmental cleanup program. Meanwhile, updates to the Transfer Act increase the number of sites excluded from the program and reduce the scope of investigation/remediation for certain sites. Owners and prospective purchasers…

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GEODesign is the geotechnical engineer for the Design-Build team for the Interstate I-91 Rockingham, VT Bridges Replacement Project. The project replaces the northbound and southbound bridges over the Williams River and the Green Mountain Railroad. HDR, Inc. is the lead designer and Reed & Reed is the prime contractor. VTrans designated the bridge as a…

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For 185 years, the Windsor Upper Dam (a.k.a. Ascutney Mill Dam) has stood in the Town of Windsor, Vermont. The structure is on the National Register of Historic Places and is recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers as an engineering landmark that is “one of the first gravity-arch dams built in the United…

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The 2017 federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act created the new federal Opportunity Zone program, designed to spur economic development and job creation in distressed communities by providing tax benefits for private investment. Based on low-income census tracts and typically representing urban centers, there are some 8,700 qualified Opportunity Zones (OZs) across the United States…

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The City of Bristol, CT, recently completed the construction of rockfall protective measures along a section of Mountain Rd. The main function of rockfall protection is to prevent and control rocks and debris from falling onto roadways and passing vehicles. Called an “Energy Barrier,” the new structure is designed to absorb the kinetic energy released…

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Nobody likes a surprise in development, especially during construction. Urban Site development and excavation for foundations and utilities often encounters material referred to as urban fill or historic fill . This material originates from commercial, industrial and manufacturing uses dating back to the nineteenth century. Urban fill is also found at waterfront locations where land has been created or…

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GEODesign is providing geotechnical engineering services to F&T Group and Shanghai Construction for the Tangram development project located at 133-21 39th Avenue in Flushing, New York. The site occupies nearly two blocks between 37th & 39th Avenues and between Prince Street & College Point Boulevard in the downtown Flushing neighborhood of Queens. The project is…

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Is Design Build (DB) here to stay? In the construction industry, trends come and go. In 1992 F.H. “Bud” Griffis authored “ADR, TQM, Partnering and Other Management Fantasies” (reference 1). At that time Partnering was being hailed as the latest new solution in successful construction outcomes. Now DB is the trend. This writer was involved…

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GEODesign provided geotechnical, geostructural, geoenvironmental and related construction-period engineering support to John P. Picone (JPP) for construction of the Site P Station Entrance for the No. 7 Flushing Line Extension (Borough of Manhattan), for the MTA/NYCTA. The Site P Station is located across from the Jacob Javits Center between 34th and 35th Streets and 10th…

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Cost-effective geotechnical engineering expertise proved crucial in constructing Connecticut’s highest permanent soil nail wall on schedule. The wall was completed as design-built commission by a team lead by Fusco/Clark who chose GEODesign to be on their team. The 54-foot high structure makes parking feasible at the University of Connecticut Health Center’s outpatient center, which opens this…

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Peer reviews of geotechnical design by owners and their design teams are steadily increasing in the construction sector. In the last couple of years, GEODesign has received more requests for peer reviews than ever before. Often these requests come in one or more of these contexts: “We would just like to double-check the solutions being…

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GeoDiligence – What is it? Purchasers of real estate are frequently looking at a property with a specific plan in mind. All too frequently, due diligence is only considered for environmental liabilities (the evaluation of known or potential contamination from prior industrial uses, underground tanks, spills etc.). The pre-purchase assessment of soil, groundwater and bedrock…

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The railroad embankment for the Hudson Line tracks just north of Peekskill, New York was identified by Metro North as a location requiring slope stability improvement. The embankment had historically experienced localized slope failures and slides. Slide detectors at that location were tripped several times a year, necessitating the closure of both tracks while an…

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The natural engineering tendency when posed with a loading problem is to find a way to support it. We have learned, however, that it is equally good question to ask is: Can the load be reduced? This applies to both seismic analyses and static analyses. The James Road project in Weybridge, Vermont is an excellent…

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Construction is underway on the $57M, 103K square-foot Connecticut River Academy that will serve as a science and environmental magnet high school in East Hartford, Connecticut. GEODesign served as the project’s geotechnical engineer for design and construction of the foundations for the four-story academic building and precast concrete parking garage on Goodwin College’s campus. Wick drains…

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