Engineering The Impossible: Transforming A Challenging Site Into A Modern Apartment Community at Novo Sweetwater

“We confronted pretty much every complication you can imagine,” says Senior Vice President Mark LeCraw, P.E., of Gaskins + LeCraw, a Pape-Dawson company, reflecting on the Novo Sweetwater project. The 300-unit apartment community now serves as an amenity-rich complex, but before that, it was undeveloped terrain with a mixture of challenges, some known, some to be discovered. Those included streams and wetlands, a cross-country gas pipeline, a layer of rock lurking beneath the surface, undulating topography, and an active road construction project on one side and an interstate on the other.

Water became a major concern. “Going in, we knew about one stream crossing, but we hadn’t understood the impacts of a second stream crossing and how significant the wetlands were,” says Senior Project Manager, Michael Toothaker, RLA. The design eventually included five large box culverts and six ponds, one of them underground, a high number for a project of this size.

Two buried gas pipelines run alongside a fiber optic cable through the property, which introduced new complexities. The topography at the lines would have to remain essentially unchanged. It required more coordination than a typical utility conflict, including plan review, on-site pipeline owner oversight during the site work phase, and a retaining wall to maintain stability.

Gaskins + LeCraw’s pre-application process revealed another complexity: the planned widening of a county road on the east side of the project would run concurrent with the Novo Sweetwater project. Engineers began with survey data and the proposed roadway design, working with the county engineer and contractor for the widening project in a coordinated effort that spelled success for both sides.

Rock was a known challenge. “We’d done a residential subdivision nearby, and we encountered rock there, so we told the client upfront that they’d be working with rock, which they appreciated,” says Mark. Because cutting through rock with explosives or bulldozers can be expensive, engineers often try to avoid the rock entirely, but they couldn’t achieve that here. “We had gas lines that dictated grades at some locations, streams and wetlands dictating grades at others, and an interstate dictating the grade there,” he adds. At the end of the day, rock proved to be unavoidable in some areas.

The other difficulties Gaskins + LeCraw worked through with this project ranged from the common (the skyrocketing materials and labor costs that affected construction everywhere during the pandemic) to the batty, literally. “Our schedule had to account for migratory bats that come through the area every year,” said Michael, a wrinkle that put pressure on permit timing.

Despite the complexities, Gaskins + LeCraw served the developer with trusted land surveying, land planning, civil engineering, landscape architecture, entitlements, permitting, and construction phase support. The hard-won result is a pleased client and hundreds of residents who now call Novo Sweetwater home.