Denver Redi-Rock
Detention Pond

According to Blaine French, Wall Contractor with Slaton Bros., Redi-Rock was the best choice for this application for several reasons:

“The owner really preferred the look and the aesthetics of Redi-Rock. In this type of application with a detention pond, freeze-thaw durability and the durability wet cast concrete provides over some of the other available options with segmental concrete certainly played to the advantage of it,” French said.

Redi-Rock walls can be built with minimal space requirements and are extremely easy to install. Also, all Redi-Rock products work together, which was why Redi-Rock was an ideal solution for this project. Some of the detention pond retaining walls utilized the Redi-Rock gravity system, which uses massive, 1-ton blocks to hold back the earth. However, some areas of the project design required additional reinforcement. For those areas, Redi-Rock Positive Connection (PC) System blocks were used to provide the reinforcement that was necessary while maintaining a consistent look on the face of the wall.

The detaining wall blocks for this project were manufactured locally by Signature Stone. Seth Clark of Signature Stone said, “The original concept was small block and wasn’t going to work. Redi-Rock became a good solution and the owner liked the aesthetics. Additionally, we were able to color the block to help compliment the color of the hospital.”

Because the owner chose Redi-Rock, they were able to use the Limestone texture consistently throughout the project, even after engineering challenges required adjustments to the wall designs.

The site ended up being more complex than anticipated, and the designs had to be edited to handle the groundwater that was appearing as the excavation went deeper.

“We ended up having to edit the design as we went along. We had to switch to a soil nail process for the lower part of the excavation and then do a reinforced block wall for the upper part of the excavation,” explained structural design engineer, Wayne Thompson, PE. “That worked out very well, because with the soil nail we could still face it with a Redi-Rock block and still get the desired look by the end of the project.”

Even though the project was slowed down due to the groundwater conditions, Johnson said it was still completed on schedule because they used Redi-Rock.

“Once we started setting the Redi-Rock, the process moved very quickly. We were able to work in multiple places at any given time and the construction of the wall was completed on schedule despite the groundwater delays, because of the time that was picked up in the Redi-Rock installation,” Johnson said.