With a large portion of the building footprint constructed over a multilevel garage, groundwater control was an important issue for both construction and building design. Geotechnical Engineering: GZA developed geotechnical foundation design recommendations to support the 29-story tower as well as the low-rise portions of the project. To meet the growing needs of the project, GZA’s involvement quickly grew to include geotechnical and marine engineering as well as comprehensive natural resources and permitting services.Įcological Services and Resilient Design: GZA’s natural resources team conducted topographic and hydrographic surveys performed biological surveys of the shoreline, intertidal, and sub-tidal zones conducted extensive sediment sampling and analysis to further define the nature and extent of sediment impacts from historic operations characterized sediments within a former ship channel to identify costs associated with dredging and reopening the channel for the project’s use and developed plans for a Living Shoreline to return the native salt marsh and native coastal bank plant species to the fringe of the site as part of the environmental impact mitigation for the project. GZA also prepared several sections of the reports required by the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), and developed cost estimates for reaching regulatory closure under the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP) and for dealing with contamination encountered during construction. The combination of complex environmental and geologic conditions, coastal flood vulnerability, the waterfront setting, and the fast-paced nature of this mega-development project required a focused project team with a diverse set of technical skills.ĭuring initial phases of the project, GZA participated in negotiations with the former owner regarding the extent of remediation warranted by site conditions. In addition, the geologic conditions varied greatly within the site.

The buildings on the property were razed in the 1970s and the property had been used primarily as a material storage and staging yard since the mid-1990s, when rock and fine-grained material (“tunnel muck”) from the construction of the Deer Island Outfall project were stockpiled on it and later spread out. The 32-acre property on the Mystic River selected for the Encore Boston Harbor resort and casino had been impacted by historic chemical manufacturing use much of the site was on salt marsh that had been filled with waste materials from operations at the site and/or nearby facilities.

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