In coordination with the Nashville District and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), our team of professionals provided pre-construction planning assistance for eight major construction contracts valued at around $600 million over a period of twelve years. This included developing feasible construction phases, alternatives, staging areas, project scheduling, workforce requirements, and resource allocation to determine project funding requirements. Additionally, our visual services group created a twelve-minute 3D animated video production, and more than sixty plans were prepared.

Our team prepared an innovative value engineering study that evaluated and developed three new alternatives for the construction of the Lower Middle Wall. Each alternative offered unique benefits, including a braced cofferdam with a drilled shaft foundation, a braced cofferdam with a wider base and no drilled shafts, and a float-in cofferdam set down on a rock bed with tremie infill. These options were then compared to the original three designs based on cost and constructability. Finally, potential disruptions to existing lock traffic were also evaluated to ensure minimal disruptions during construction.

In a subsequent construction phase, our firm was brought on by construction contractor Johnson Bros. Construction to support a value engineering change proposal (VECP). The USACE had revised the construction method for the downstream cofferdam for the new lock from the original design, which used float-in construction, to a lift-in construction. Our team, leveraging our expertise and experience, assisted the General Contractor in preparing lift-in designs for the VECP by revising the amount of rock excavation and the base levels for segment set-downs. This innovative in-the-wet work design was successfully completed in 2017, delivering not just a high-quality solution but also saving the government approximately $1 million.