W.B. Hopke Receives Rave Reviews for the Cardinal Elementary School Stormwater Management System Project in Arlington, VA

Following the devastating storms that caused flooding, losses and impacted the surrounding business and homes from a July 2019 storm event, Arlington County took important steps towards building a flood resilient Arlington by announcing the expansion of their proposed storm water management system.

In the fall of 2019, W.B. Hopke was awarded the Cardinal Elementary School (formerly known as Reed Elementary School) project in Arlington, VA by Gilbane Building Company. Phase 1 was the construction of a new Arlington County elementary school and was completed in 2021. Phase 2 is the construction of 2 very large stormwater management vaults under the future ballfields for the school.  Phase 2 began in December of 2021 with a completion date scheduled for 2023. Phase 2 is 70% complete.

The two-phase project located in the Torreyson Run watershed area at 1644 North McKinley Road in Arlington, VA, near the Westover Shopping Center District, is a signature contract for Hopke because of its size, complexity, and high-water table at a location which is known to have issues with flooding. This can make installations, construction and scheduling very tricky. It requires an experienced team to develop solutions to be successful in the completion of a project of this size.

The project has drawn rave reviews from StormTrap, the precast stormwater vault supplier.

“We have been monitoring the StormTrap installation at Reed weekly since it started. I have been doing this for a lot of years with StormTrap and seen a lot of these go in the ground. I can honestly say the system they are installing is the best I have ever seen from an installation standpoint. They are level, plumb, and the pieces are extremely tight.

“It shows the pride and quality that your team puts into their work. I know we have several weeks to go on this project, and anything can go wrong, but it has been pretty amazing to watch your guys put this together with the expertise and skill to make it that tight. It makes my life a lot easier when there is a crew like this working on a project. This is not something I say often about a crew installing our systems. We understand things are not always perfect in anyway, but your crew just keeps doing their best. We will do our best to accommodate the site’s needs till the end of the project.” 
Jim Gesselman, Senior Project Manager
StormTrap

Special thanks to Tommy Kennedy and his crew members Dillon Kennedy, Luis Morales, Mike Brady, Jacob Desmond and Wilman Alexis, as well as Mike Lipps and his crew members Justin Beckett, Alcides Jovel, Nelson Portillo, Makal Fletcher, and Javon Alexander for the quality of their work on this project. We’d also like to thank David Steger, Brian Starnes and Chuck Johnson for their management and coordination.

The Phase 2 scope of the project was massive and included the following:

Installation of 2 precast stormwater detention systems – the larger system having 477,775 CF of water storage capacity and made up of 670 precast pieces and the smaller system having 54,745 CF of water storage capacity and made up of 78 precast pieces.

Project manager, David Steger who has been with W.B. Hopke since 2019, summed up the project like this “Apart from providing the lowest bid, it was our expertise with stormwater detention systems that I think made the difference with this contract. We have a dynamic team of professionals and a management team with a vast history of successful projects under their belts. The hardest part with this type of project is the logistics of managing the flow of materials into an area with very little space. We could only bring in 6 trucks at a time to deliver materials, and we had to keep the inventory as tight as possible. As soon as the materials were installed at the site, we had to bring in another 6 trucks to deliver materials with as little interruption as possible to the flow of work. We also had to manage water issues that accumulated from excavating. We worked with our excavating partners and provided our expertise to help keep water pumped out so work could continue. Thus far, we are on schedule and the project is going according to plan.”

Contact W.B. Hopke about a career in utility installation and site work at 703-971-0404 or info@wbhopke.com

References

Arlington County, Virginia, https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Projects/Project-Types/Water-Utilities/Reed-School-Stormwater-Vault (accessed July 31, 2022)

ARLNow, https://www.arlnow.com/2020/12/08/county-board-considering-stormwater-improvements-at-reed-school-site-in-westover/ (accessed July 31, 2022)