BCI was selected by the City of Athens to provide engineering services for the reconstruction of Jeff Hill in Athens, Ohio. Jeff Hill is within the public right-of-way, part of East Union Street and bisects the Ohio University Campus.
The initial reconstruction included a new waterline, the replacement of a section of the sanitary sewer with repairs to other sections as well as a total street reconstruction.
During the coordination phase, the University decided to include a new chilled waterline service for future needs. With BCI’s past utility engineering experience with Ohio University, the design of the chilled waterline was completed through a contract with the University.
BCI received authorization to complete the design from the City in January 2010. The project required an aggressive construction schedule. Construction started after the last day of spring semester and was completed by August 27, 2010, prior to fall semester move-in day.
The aggressive construction schedule was met through a cooperative effort with the City, the University, BCI, and the contractor. Weekly progress meetings were held. Key decisions were made promptly with submittals, pay requests, and other approvals addressed at each meeting. Fortunately, all parties involved including the contractor, participated in a similar project with a tight time schedule two years prior.
For this project, BCI provided preliminary cost and grant application assistance, surveying, construction documents, utility coordination, and probating as well as bidding assistance and construction administration. This included attendance at the weekly progress meetings.
Technically, the most challenging aspect of this project was designing and installing these utilities within the 18 feet of pavement on a slope of 15% or more. The existing water and sewer lines needed to remain in service during construction while the new sanitary sewer, domestic water and twin 24-inch chilled waterlines were installed. The valve chambers for the chilled waterlines were cast-in-place with the formwork immediately adjacent to the domestic waterline.
This $800,000 project included 1,100 l.f. of 10-inch domestic waterline, 1,200 l.f. of 16-inch and 24-inch chilled waterlines along with 500 l.f. of new sanitary sewer. The roadwork included new asphalt pavement, new curb, sidewalk repair, and miscellaneous concrete restoration.
