East Side story

May Gurney Geotechnical has been awarded a second phase of piling work at the £135m East Street project - an important part of the regeneration of Leeds.

The development comprises 640 apartments, a 215-bed hotel, 2,335 sq m of office space, 1,400 sq m of mixed commercial and retail outlets, and a 500 vehicle basement car park - located on a four-acre triangular shaped former timber yard site.

The heavily reinforced concrete framed buildings are being constructed over a basement. Some of the buildings are 13 storeys high, and a majority of the building cores are interconnected at different levels.

The foundation support level for these reinforced concrete framed buildings is located within a high water table zone, the site being only four metres above the river level. The ground conditions are such that the overburden cannot provide the required support and the underlying rock is variable in both strength and depth.

The high compression, tension and horizontal loads require the buildings to be supported by Continuous Flight Auger (CFA) piles bored through the weak and wet gravely clay and into rock sockets in the deeper, solid mudstone.

May Gurney completed the £642,000 Phase 1 contract in February 2005, and this second phase - some 274 no. 750mm and 77 no. 600mm diameter piles - is scheduled for completion in January 2007.

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