Soil Retention
Verdura
Project SpotlightFINAL
Willow Heights
January 15, 2015
Submitted by Julie Taylor
Total Words: 661
Soil Retention Completes Largest Project in Company History
More than 100,000 SF of Verdura Installed in Record Time
Soil Retention’s award-winning Verdura® Plantable Retaining Wall System is featured in a beautiful, newplanned community by Lennar Homes in Los Angeles County. Willow Heights, which will open in Spring 2015, is made up of three distinct neighborhoods featuring 182 residential units on a 30-acre space in the city of Diamond Bar with views of the San Gabriel Mountains.
As with many of its projects, Soil Retention provided design, manufacturing and fullinstallation services for Lennar. The project is significant to the company because it now holds the distinction as the largest single, completed project in Soil Retention’s history. Installation took less than 10 weeks with more than 100,000 sf of installed walls. The job required approximately 70,000 blocks and 140, 40-foot flat bed truckloads to deliver it all.
A total of 11 walls ranging in size from 1,400 sf to 22,000 sf were installed throughout the site. The majority of the wall square footage resides in a 40-foot tiered wall complex that traverses 2,000 linear feet bisecting the site. This 80,000 sf of wall is an integral part of the overall site stability of the project and is used to help delineate the different planned communities. The remaining 20,000 sf of Verdura walls ranged in height from 4 to 20 feet and were used in perimeter applications around the development. Smaller double- to triple-tiered 4-foot walls front the north side of the project facing the public right-of-way. Two unique walls were installed within debris basins capturing offsite run-on, while another two walls supported the detention basin design, which captures onsite run-off.
“Our Verdura system was the right choice for this project for several reasons,” says Darien Osborne, PE, Director of Preconstruction for Soil Retention. “The strength of our system, the fully plantable wall face allowing for a variety of vegetation, our proven track record of success, the fact that Verdura is ICC and Caltrans approved and offers an excellent mechanical connection between the block and geogrid are all part of the equation. We also pride ourselves on our commitment to timely service and when combined with our affordability, it creates a truly win-win scenario,” he says.
Osborne adds that despite some challenges and the complexities of the project, Soil Retention’s crew was able to complete the entire installation in less than three months improving the developer’s schedule by a full month!
“The Verdura plantable wall system enabled us to increase our useable land thereby increasing the yield on the number of homes we could build,” says Lester Tucker, Sr. Director of Development at Lennar Homes California. “Using Verdura was less expensive than traditional retaining walls and construction took less than half the time. Bottom line, it was less expensive, faster to construct and looks phenomenal! The icing on the cake is that the Verdura wall allows for, and creates a tremendous amount of plantable area and greenery, which softens the feel of the large walls. They look great and I know they will stay looking great once they are planted, just like the ones we’ve done elsewhere with Soil Retention. Thank you for a job well done!”
Lennar has plans to plant the walls with a combination of rosemary and California drought tolerant plants, ivies and other flowering plants to soften the look of the walls and create a more verdant space in the development. By the time the models open in spring, the walls will already be in bloom.
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Project Team Members
Developer/Client - Lennar Homes –
Project Designer and Civil Engineer – Hunsaker & Associates –
Wall Manufacturer, Designer & Installer – Soil Retention –
Grading Contractors – Mesa Contracting –
Soils Engineer – LGC Geotechnical –
Total SF of Retaining Walls – 100,000+
Job Duration – May through August, 2014