Fuller Group has designed many mixed-use facilities throughout the southeast. Examples include multi-family and retail buildings at McBee Station, Camperdown, and The Avant. Fuller has designed multi-story, mixed-use residential buildings from the mountains of Kentucky to the coasts of Florida.
In recent years, mixed-use has expanded its generally perceived definition to include more options that
have no residential element at all–hotel, office, and retail blends. These structures sometimes require complicated framing schemes, particularly at the transition from parking or retail spaces below to residential spaces above. Whether it’s post-tensioned podium slabs or concrete and steel transfer girders, Fuller Group has the creativity and expertise required to meet the needs of these challenging designs.
The Camperdown Project
Located in the space formerly occupied by the Greenville News in downtown Greenville for decades, sits a new mixed-use development forming a vibrant epicenter on Main Street. It includes a multitude of private and public uses including the AC Hotel, Deca Apartments, office buildings (including the new Greenville News building and Bank of America), retail facilities, restaurants, public plazas, and an underground parking garage.
Camperdown is, to date, the largest singular investment downtown in Greenville’s history. Falls Tower, within the development, is the second tallest building in Greenville standing at 17 stories. The buildings in Camperdown are primarily concrete frames with post tension concrete floors. A combination of concrete core walls and concrete moment frames were used for the lateral system. A series of expansion joints divide the development into six independent structures. The plaza is infilled with a below grade precast parking structure. Light framed retail boxes sit over the precast plaza. The structure continues three levels below Main St. where it sits on bedrock. The site was carved out with up to 15 feet of blasted rock where the footings were tied down with rock anchors.
Fuller Group led the structural design of the five-year project through multiple phases and multiple design teams, constantly planning forward for unknown conditions that required flexibility and adaptations for future phases. Fuller Group worked with Developer Centennial American Properties, Architect Nelson Worldwide (Atlanta and Jacksonville), and Contractors Trehel and Brasfield & Gorrie.
McBee Station
Mixed-use developments pose a unique challenge to structural engineers due to the more complex layout of the spaces, the multiple tenant uses, and the tendency to utilize a mixture of structural systems including steel, concrete, masonry, cold-formed and wood elements.
Completed in 2008, McBee Station brought a much-needed grocery store to the downtown area. It is a 14-acre development with two city blocks of mixed-use spaces totaling 130,000 square feet. The architects at McMillan Pazdan Smith drew upon the historic character of the downtown architecture and utilized a warehouse and historic mill approach to break up the overall mass of the building and maintain a pedestrian scale along the McBee Avenue facade.
The Avant
The Avant is a mixed-use development planned in the vibrant West End of downtown Greenville with retail at Main St. and luxury units above. The development is designed with sustainability in mind, and will boast a LEED Silver certification. To match its progressive thinking, the development will feature a state-of-the-art automated multi-level parking system with car elevators, as well as a six-story water feature.
The structure is a concrete frame with a core wall lateral system. Due to height restrictions, post tension concrete floor slabs were used to save as much height as possible. The footprint of the building is pushed to the property line on four sides. A compact lot line mat foundation was designed and supported on ground improved soil.
Fuller Group worked with architects Craig Gaulden Davis, general contractor Triangle Construction, and developer STM Acquisition & Development.”