Radius @ 15th Student Apartments

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Client: Cuningham Group

Services: Civil, Structural

Construction Costs: $30,000,000

Materials: Wood, Masonry, Precast Concrete

 

The project called for demolition of five existing single family homes and four apartment buildings for construction of the new apartment building.

 

The building features one level of below grade parking with 174 parking stalls and a total of 651 designated bicyle parking locations throughour the site. The building is configured in a ring shape that conceals an interior courtyard from street view. The courtyard area includes a large one-story clubhouse, an outdoor custom hot tub, and several exterior gathering spaces, all built over the top of a portion of the underground parking.

 

The structural system consists of a slab on grade at the lowest level, two levels of precast concrete framing with masonry perimeter foundation walls, and five levels of wood framing for the upper floors. The foundation design along the north wall of the drive ramp into the underground parking required careful coordination with site conditions and the temporary soil retention contractor due to the proximity of the wall to the property line and adjacent residences.

 

Due to the limited space on the site that did not have building cover, design of the stormwater management was very challenging to achieve City of Minneapolis requirements. Additionally, the surrounding public storm sewer system had invert elevations less than six feet deep. BKBM used a multi-system approach to accomplish the stormwater management goals.

 

BKBM’s civil and structural engineering teams coordinated with the architect and mechanical engineer to use the rooftop as a temporary holding pond. This allowed installation of an underground infiltration system along the northeast property line. However, portions of the available open area had to be over-excavated to reach soils that were conducive to infiltration. This system discharged into a 30-inch HDPE pipe that is located along the east side of the building. This pipe provided additional rate control and allowed the site stormwater management to connect to the City sewer main.

 

Additionally, BKBM’s civil team worked with our structural engineering team and the Landscape Architect to design planters on the building’s interior courtyard to function as temporary holding ponds.