Building a 500,000 square foot retail center on the site of a former quarry in a region with Karst geology is not an easy task. Just ask the engineers at Bohler Engineering who are currently working on the Riverton Commons project in Front Royal, Virginia.
The abandoned quarry site, which was 90 feet deep and covered an area of 2.5 acres, needed special planning by the Bohler Engineering team. An access road had to be cut into the existing quarry to allow the entrance of equipment. Next, several hundred cubic yards of grout were injected into the ground to prevent potential sinkhole formation due to the area’s Karst geology. Also, Bohler Engineering performed an extensive amount of grading to minimize rock excavation, and filled the quarry site to grade under the proposed building footprint.
The Riverton Commons project was designed to utilize low impact techniques for stormwater quality management. The engineers included several rain gardens throughout the site to achieve stormwater quality control and to provide additional landscaping areas. “Our goal was to maintain water quality for the Shenandoah River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay,” says Mark Joyce, P.E., Bohler Engineering Warrenton office branch manager.
One other challenge that confronted the Bohler Engineering specialists was to provide a solution to the heavy truck traffic at the entrance to this major shopping center. “The Riverton Commons was one of the first projects in the state of Virginia to include the design of a round-about to ease traffic flow in and out of the site,” explains Mark.
The Riverton Commons round-about is the first example of such a traffic solution in the Staunton District of the Virginia Department of Transportation, and it was successfully reviewed by the Federal Highway Administration.
