The Marek South, Lebanon, New Hampshire

In 2020, Saxon Partners began planning to develop an apartment complex on Mount Support Road in Lebanon, New Hampshire.  The Upper Valley of New Hampshire has experienced a housing shortage for quite some time and it is estimated that 10,000 housing units are needed by 2030 to meet the region’s demand.  A notable part of that demand is driven by the need to house medical professionals that work for Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the flagship campus of Dartmouth Health and the state’s only academic medical center.  

 

The project development, The Marek South, is a 38 acre parcel located one mile from Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and on the multi-modal path and along a bus route to the medical center.  The project consists of two, 5-story residential buildings including a combined 250 housing units.  

In order to make this critical housing development a reality, the project team needed to overcome the site’s geotechnical challenges, which included large grade changes, the need for multiple retaining structures, existing uncontrolled site fills, sensitive bearing soils and shallow groundwater.  S. W. Cole Engineering, Inc. was retained in 2020 to provide geotechnical engineering and provided solutions for dewatering of the site and recommendations for site improvements to create proper support for the buildings.