Roanoke’s 1920s Fire Station No. 7 was an iconic presence in the city, serving the Roanoke community for nearly 100 years. However, the 4,500-square-foot structure was too small and impractical to meet the current crew’s needs.

The City of Roanoke decided to demolish the old fire station and replace it with an updated 14,000-square-foot building. The new firehouse incorporated modern fire station design and crew amenities. Approximately 1,200 bricks were recovered from the old building and used to construct an accent wall, thereby preserving the firehouse’s history in the new station. F&R’s involvement involved conducting a subsurface exploration program and geotechnical engineering analyses, which primarily focused on the bearing capacity of the footings. F&R partnered with the city to provide engineering guidance as the project progressed.

While this was a smaller project with a limited scope, the site presented numerous challenges. The F&R team discovered waste materials that had been buried at the site before the original construction. Many of the footings were undercut several feet due to poor soil capacity, partly due to the presence of groundwater near the surface. In addition, F&R’s senior geotechnical engineer frequently encountered weathered rock at the site, typically at depths of at least one foot below the planned bottom of the footing, which had to be removed.

F&R’s senior geotechnical engineer visited the site multiple times to observe existing conditions and make geotechnical engineering recommendations to help guide design and construction activities. The team provided a geotechnical report that summarized the geotechnical investigation and offered recommendations to guide the city in foundation design, pavement design, and provide lateral earth pressure analysis.