UPLANDS REDEVELOPMENT
Baltimore City, MD
Uplands community is a 761-acre, $238 million master-planned community located on the site of the former Uplands community in southwest Baltimore. Uplands community is one of Baltimore City’s first future-proof developments providing single family homes, townhomes, semi-detached homes, rental homes and rental apartments to 1,100 residents. All of the residences are designed and built to meet LEED requirements.
The oversight of the site infrastructure development is being performed by the City of Baltimore Department of Transportation.
Working with the site developer, The Robert B. Balter Company (Balter) provided comprehensive Geotechnical Engineering design services for the Uplands site, including design of the Storm Water Management facilities, pavements and proper reuse of the site soils. Balter also provided geotechnical recommendations for design of the proposed Rental Phase 1. Extensive evaluations were conducted to define the highly variable top of rock at the site. This allowed for proper cost estimating as shallow rock is encountered across much of the site.
Balter assisted in the development of the specifications for the project, as well as providing assistance to questions during the bidding phase. Balter remains an integral part of the team during the construction phase of the project providing testing and inspection QA/QC services for the developer and the City of Baltimore. At the request of the developer, Balter is one of the first independent geotechnical firms to provide independent testing and inspection on a project managed by the City DOT.
The Uplands development relocated ~200,000 cubic yards of soil, all of which was reused in some fashion on the site. As the biggest challenge on the site, Balter has placed its most skilled senior technicians and engineers on the project to oversee that these materials were reused in a manner consistent with the project specifications.
The project mass grading began during an extremely wet winter which required intimate knowledge of the site conditions in order to assist the contractor in amending the wet soil conditions. Given the difficult working conditions at the start of the project, the direction and experience that Balter provides has the project working on schedule.