DESCRIPTION

Martha Jefferson Hospital, a 100 year old community hospital was destined to outgrow its downtown location as the city rapidly grew up around it. The decision was made to relocate the entire facility, including the Outpatient Care Center, to a beautiful 88-acre campus just outside of town and within sight of Jefferson’s historic Monticello. The new 540,000 sf replacement hospital includes a parking structure, main hospital, central plant, and inpatient and outpatient wings.

CHALLENGE

Column loads ranged from 600 to more than 1000 kips. The project site had a combination of man-made fill, alluvial and residual soils underlain by soft weathered rock and moderately to slightly weathered greenstone bedrock.

SOLUTION

Geopier technology was specified to control settlements where footings were bearing on significant amounts of unimproved residual soils. A total of 1200 thirty-inch diameter Geopier elements were installed to an average depth of 12 ft to provide a 6,000 psf bearing capacity and keep total and differential settlements to less than 1 inch and 0.5 inch, respectively.