Sustainable Land Development Today - March 2008 - (Page 26) COLLABORATION traffic entering and leaving the site. Additionally, it became a critical requirement in the Piedmont Natural Gas lease. The signal had to be operating before the company’s movein date arrived. The MUDDO review process also produced some inLarge terraces provide ample space for gathering and outdoor dining in ternal bureaucratic front of buildings on the central piazza. challenges. One of the key architectural and engineering features of the project track. The company assigned 20 project was a roundabout with a fountain in the managers to the site. At one time, there center set in front of Piedmont’s head- were 12 cranes and more than 1,000 construction workers on the job. Shelco put quarters. DOT approved the plans for the cir- up the building as fast as the architects cle, which included the placement of a and engineers released construction docseries of medians designed to prevent uments and drawings. And they made it. The new traffic sigdrivers from inadvertently going the nal was up and operating and Piedmont wrong way. The fire department, however, re- was in its new headquarters by Oct. 31, fused to approve the circle design, ob- 2005, just as the lease demanded. serving that the medians would prevent a large fire truck from moving freely Lessons Learned through the circle. Two city departments The pressure to get community apwere at loggerheads. Eventually, Cole provals, carry out rezoning, and obtain Jenest & Stone mediated a planning ses- permits to allow construction to finish on sion at which everyone was present and time can increase day-by-day on a coman acceptable compromise was agreed plex mixed-use project. The reason is upon. that mixed use is relatively new to deAll told, MUDDO approvals took 14 velopers and designers and often comweeks, while the construction schedule pletely new to municipalities. had allowed just three weeks. While a developer and a municipality Photo Credit: Stanley Capps Photography Permission to Build To speed the permit process, LS3P Associates Ltd. worked closely with the Charlotte Building Standards Department to develop a schedule for reviewing the project for permit in a series of packages. These packages included foundations, structure, and the core and shell of individual buildings and interior upfit. Permitting went smoothly, but the rezoning process and the MUDDO review process had put the project well behind schedule. So it fell to Shelco, the general contractor, to put construction on a fast Circle 156 • or www.SLDTonline.com/webcard 26 March 2008 Sustainable Land Development Today might be accustomed to each other and well experienced in cut-and-dried single use zoning, the processes necessary to move through mixed-use can be different and quite a bit more challenging. As a result, construction teams for mixed-use development projects – especially larger and more complicated – should organize more sophisticated strategies to complete on schedule, allowing for as much time as possible. SLDT About the author: James Williams is with LS3P Associates Ltd., and can be reached at jimwilliams@ls3p.com. http://www.invisiblestructures.com http://www.invisiblestructures.com http://www.SLDTonline.com/webcard
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