PROJECT OVERVIEW
Phoenix Project #2011
Originally home to New England dairy company H.P. Hood and Sons, Hood Park is one of the newest sites of revitalization in greater Boston. Located in Charlestown, Hood Park offers an all-encompassing office, laboratory, and residential campus. The first of three projects which Phoenix would work on the Hood Park site, this one involved the construction of a new pavilion area including an elevated green space and pedestrian bridge connecting to the green roof deck of the structure, as well as a bicycle storage area.
Project specifications called for either proprietary drilled displacement piles, or ductile iron piles (“DIPs”). DIPs were chosen for speed of installation, development of capacity in friction, and cost savings compared to drilled displacement piles. The soil conditions consisted of heterogeneous urban fill with obstructions, a peat and organic layer, marine and glaciomarine sand and clay, and finally a medium dense to very dense glacial till. All piles were designed for 40 ton design capacity in compression bearing in the till.
Following a successful pre-production load test program, Phoenix installed a total of 128 production piles in 9 working days, for an average production rate of nearly 15 piles per day. Overall, the DIP installation was significantly faster than a drilled displacement pile system would have been.
