MDOT Oakland TSC

Spalding DeDecker (SD) provided site design for the Michigan Department of Transportation’s new Oakland County Transportation Service Center (TSC) in the City of Pontiac. Successful coordination with the City, private utility companies, site contractor, and the Michigan Department of Management and Budget (MDMB) resulted in resolution of a variety of unexpected challenges including:

• SD’s discovery of substantial cuts of material from the site by the industrial subdivision developer after a survey of the site was already completed and design had begun.
• SD’s discovery of fill material on-site placed by the industrial subdivision developer prior to the start of the TSC construction. Mitigating grading plans were issued to resolve this.
• The need for substantial excavation of buried construction debris not found during the exploratory boring phase I environmental study.
• Quantifying additional earth and debris excavation by additional survey measurements and 3-D CAD analysis to verify contractor’s claims for payment.

Despite the challenges that were presented on this project, SD mitigated their impacts to the schedule and project cost with the support of and coordination with the project architect, testing engineer, and MDMB staff.