PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The Ashley River Road Office Complex, a new commercial development on SC-61 (Ashley River Rd), located south of the intersection of SC-61 and Ashley Hall Road, involved site planning, engineering, and permitting from the conceptual level to construction documents. The project included all aspects of Civil Site design permitted through the City of Charleston, SCDOT, and Charleston Water Systems. J. Bragg Consulting coordinated with the permitting agencies, project arborist, surveyor, architect, and geotechnical engineer to develop site conceptual layouts for initial pre-application meetings followed by permit documents.  The project included a multi-unit office building with parking, low-impact design (LID) stormwater management, and utility services for water, sanitary sewer, and fire protection.  J. Bragg Consulting developed plans and permitting documents to navigate the project through the City of Charleston Technical Review Committee (TRC) and the Board of Zoning Appeals for Site Design (BZA-SD) and the Design Review Board (DRB).

CHALLENGES: Since the property for the site development is situated on an irregularly shaped property with a small roadway frontage width, located in the City of Charleston’s Special Protection Area (SPA) associated with known flooding, and contains many protected and grand trees, there were many challenges. Due to the City of Charleston’s land development ordinance initial planning and permit coordination included the following:

• Special exceptions and variances for tree removals and required buffer reductions
• Extensive stormwater management of flow and volume up to the 100-year storm event which required LID design due to being in the SPA and not having a stormwater outfall easement.
• Difficult site design because the property is not wide enough for fire truck maneuvers, limiting development to have only 150 feet of entrance roadway length. 
• Various planning layouts and agency coordination due to grand and protected trees.
• Driveway coordination and reconfiguration due to be located directly under an existing traffic signal for an irregularly aligned  intersection.

RESPONSIBILITIES: J. Bragg Consulting performed site planning and development design inclusive of demolition, tree protection, grading, drainage, erosion control, water, sewer, fire protection, and landscape design for improvements on a 0.68-acre irregularly shaped parcel to meet the City of Charleston, SCDOT and Charleston water Systems design criteria.  Agency permitting was required for planning and construction-level documents including significant stormwater management reporting, various coordination exhibits, and review board meetings.