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“What Lies Beneath” is the name of a horror film from 2000. It was real nightmare material. Ah – but it is also the dread of every building or developer. The most benign piece of land may look simple enough, but underneath that tree-covered parcel can be all kinds of trouble. Trouble that leads to making the future project no longer economically feasible or achievable.

Here is a short list of the hidden disasters

• Rock – and lots of it
• Unstable soil conditions
• An environmental hazard
• An archeological discovery

As an architect, I have worked on projects with all of the above.  Some projects were delayed, some incurred additional cost and delays, and some were canceled altogether.

Rock

Let’s start with rock – since there is a lot just down the street that suffered this costly fate. Soon after the heavily treed lot was cleared, the trauma began. It started with digging out the basement. Not so fast, apparently. For the next two weeks we got to listen to land-clearing equipment that was a combination of jackhammering and pile driving sounds. Then once the all the rocks were broken up and removed from the building pad, they were piled up into multiple trucks to be hauled away.

This remined me of another unseen rock disaster.  It was a project in a very sort after location Charlotte, North Carolina. As both the architect and land planners on the project, we had designed a line of single-family homes, duplexes, and townhomes. The developer knew there would be some rock – but underestimated the amount. Back to the drawing board – we needed rethink the land plan adding more density to off set the development costs.  Then the market died – it was 2008.

Unstable Soil

Early in my career as an architect, I worked on the Grand Floridian Beach Resort hotel at Walt Disney World.

During the early development phase, a limestone depression was discovered under a portion of the site. What is a limestone depression you ask? In central Florida, there is a layer of limestone bedrock. Now imagine a depression in that limestone 40’ below your project. Central Florida also has a high-water table – which can fill up depressions in the limestone and along with layers of topsoil – they are undetachable with extensive boring. In times of drought, the water in the layer of limestone recedes and the topsoil – and everything else – fills the void. This is more commonly referred to as a sink hole. In the case of this project, we were advised to surcharge the site with 20’ to 30’ of soil beyond the weight of any future building – to squeeze out the water and fill the void in with soil. I don’t recall the amount of time – but it was months – if not a year.

Another project that incurred both a delay and additional cost was along the intercoastal waterway (ICW) in Florida. The ICW was completed in the 1940s. During construction, trees were often uprooted and left along the side of the waterway and eventually covered by soil dug up during construction. Fast forward to the 1990s and this beautiful, tree covered waterfront lot was going to be developed. Soil boring revealed a layer of muck 30’ to 40’ below the building pad. Options included surcharging the soil – effectively squeezing out the gooey decaying organic material, placing the house on pilings to extending below the bad soil – or excavating the site and removing the bad material. The latter option was selected at considerable cost.

Environmental Hazard

Another potential project for a distillery in Charleston SC died before it got started because of what was in the soil. It was going to be a renovation of an old powerhouse built in 1909 in the navy yard in North Charleston.

It was a handsome blond brick Neoclassical design with three story tall arched topped windows and cast stone ornamentation. But when the client inquired about the abandoned building, he learned it had a negative appraisal: It would cost more to remove the toxins in the soil than the building was worth.

An archeological discovery

The last nightmare – unless you’re an archeologist – is finding arrowheads or other artifacts below your project. In this case, the project was abandoned. The time delay and the costs to carefully excavate the soil, document and categorize the discoveries made the project economically unfeasible.

When it comes to hidden site and soil conditions, I probably have just scratched the surface. I’d love to hear about other development nightmare and horror stories. Just reply to this email.