About the Project

This design-build project has enabled the team to have on both construction and designer hard hats! For the past year the team has been working closely with the hired design teams, Davis, Carter, Scott Design and Soltesz Co., along with NIH and their designers, HOK (architectural), Alpha (civil), Cagley (structural) and AEI (MEP), to develop the design sets of the Phase 1 and Phase 2 drawings.

This project is divided into two phases. The first phase, which is in progress, consists of all the underground utility work. This included the installation of ten new manholes and over 2,500 LF of duct bank. The second phase of the project is currently underway and will include the installation of the garage with over 700 parking spaces, a Utility Vault which will eventually hold all fuel tanks and generators running the NIH Building 10 Clinical Center, as well as landscaping and further road work to tie the parking garage structure into the campus traffic pattern.

A Unique Job Site

With NIH’s campus containing over 75 buildings on a 300-acre campus, it is not surprising that this is a highly complex project. One specific challenge of working on an almost 100-year-old campus such as NIH is that there are several existing underground utilities; many of which are not marked on drawing sets. These existing utilities must be worked around each day in the field, and multiple rounds of test pitting must be done to properly lay out work and avoid hitting any unmarked lines.

“The parking garage structure is to be built over an existing utility tunnel which runs 20 feet below ground and is 15 feet in height; this means that the designers must cautiously plan for the loads a concrete structure will have on this utility tunnel as well as proactively determine the specific locations for piling activities to occur,” said Project Engineer Alex Phifer.

About NIH

As part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency for biomedical and public health research. CWC has worked with NIH on previous projects such as the Northwest Parking Garage and the Center for Information Technology (CIT), both of which are located in Bethesda, MD.