W.B. Hopke Co. Receives High Marks for Work Performed at the Modera Kirkwood Clarendon Luxury Apartments in Arlington, VA

The Modera Clarendon is a luxury apartment building in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. Located at 3415 Washington Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia, the Modera is a 147,926 square foot contemporary apartment building. When complete, it will be 7 stories and will accommodate 270 apartments including apartment studios, one-, two-, and three-bedrooms, some with dens. The building is being built to LEED Silver standards, is within walking distance of George Mason’s Law, Business and Policy schools and close to Amazon’s HQ2 relocation.

The project, which began in September of 2020, is on track to be completed by Spring of 2023. Hopke started the cut and cap work for the general contractor, Mill Creek, in September 2020. The existing buildings were knocked down to make room for a new sub-level parking garage and the new building development.

Hopke’s initial work involved rerouting an existing 84″ storm main that went through the middle of the site, a critical path activity required to be completed to facilitate mass excavation. The existing 84″ main was replaced with 424 linear feet of 8′ x 8′, box culvert with two large junction boxes that enveloped the perimeter of building.

Had there been any issues with the critical path work installation of the box culvert, it would have prevented the sub-level parking garage from starting on time and caused serious delays for project.

“Hopke foreman, Carlos Hernandez, and his crew did a remarkable job with the excavation and installation of the new box culvert system. They beat the deadline required for completion by more than a month. This allowed the parking garage work to begin sooner than originally planned,” said Matt Hopke.

During the sheeting and shoring process, Mill Creek’s team came across some conflicts between the sheeting and shoring and existing underground utilities that required shifting the layout of the sheeting and shoring slightly, impacting the initial layout of the box culvert. With the box culvert pieces already fabricated and onsite, this could have created a significant delay on the job while waiting for new box culvert pieces to be fabricated. Carlos came up with a brilliant solution to reorient several pieces of the current box culvert system to account for the new layout, which saved the team cost and schedule impacts.

Another issue occurred when a different contractor broke an unmarked water main. The Hopke team immediately jumped into action and fixed the broken line. Greg Dorsey, superintendent for Mill Creek, wrote a letter stating, “All – thanks for jumping into action to resolve our water line break this morning. Your calls to the county and getting the pipe patched is greatly apprectiated!”

Materials used for the Modera Kirkwood project were:

• 424 LF of 8′x8′ box culvert with 2 large junction boxes
• Bayfilter treatment structure
• 90 LF of sanitary lateral
• 744 LF of storm drain piping & 8 storm structures
• 147 LF of water line with a 6″ meter vault

W.B. Hopke would like to recognize their dynamic team that helped to make the Modera Kirkwood project such a success. Thank you to superintendent Jimbo Cloniger, foreman Carlos Hernandez and his crew, Robby Melgar, Juan Pablo Merino, Armando Osario, Timothy Abrams and Antonio Rico for installing the box culvert system so quickly. Also, thanks to foremen JB Starnes and Jorge Villatoro and their crews for doing such a terrific job with the rest of the project work.

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

References

Multi-Housing News, https://www.multihousingnews.com/mill-creek-begins-construction-on-washington-dc-area-community/, accessed January 18, 2023

The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/20/luxury-apartment-building-rise-rosslyn-ballston-corridor/, accessed January 18, 2023

Mill Creek Residential, https://millcreekplaces.com/community/modera-clarendon/, accessed January 18, 2023