Lorraine Landings at Cooper Creek
Manatee County, Florida
WRA has been actively involved in providing full service civil engineering and environmental services for Benderson Development over the past 10 years. Benderson is the largest privately held owner of retail space in the U.S. WRA is currently providing site civil design for the final phase of an 8 year, 350 acre mixed-use development of regional impact (DRI) located in Manatee County, Florida. The presence of a highly altered, regionally significant wetland complex within the DRI posed significant design challenges. The semi-isolated freshwater wetland complex had been hydrologically overloaded due to land use activities. WRA developed a site-specific stormwater model for the 70 acre wetland complex and its 200 acre drainage basin, and used the model to design a three-stage control structure to restore appropriate water levels during both the wet and dry season. WRA also developed innovative, site-specific technologies for vegetative enhancement of the wetland complex, including the first successful transplant of the wetland hardwood Fraxinus in Florida. The project design included master planning and civil infrastructure design for the associated conveyances to and from the regional wetland complex. Major components of the design were channel conveyances, removal of ditch blocks, installation of a secondary upstream control structure, and culvert replacement. The permitting of the project used extensive floodplain and stormwater modeling to avoid adverse impacts to offsite properties. WRA developed regional floodplain and stormwater models which were accepted by all regulatory agencies. WRA also served as the resident engineer during construction, which is being bid in phases at an estimated cost of $850,000.
Project Components
- Wetland Assessment and Restoration Design
- Hydraulic/Hydrologic Analysis
- Floodplain Analysis
- Permit Facilitation
- Construction Management
- Biological Monitoring
- Cost Estimating
