CASE STUDY 23 — I-45 & Scarsdale Business Park 42-Acre Business Park | Civil Engineering & Floodplain Design

PROJECT OVERVIEW

JRH Engineering provided complete civil engineering design for a 42-acre business park in Houston, Texas, located in the Harris County floodplain and requiring simultaneous approval from both Harris County Flood Control District and the City of Houston. JRH commissioned a floodplain routing analysis upfront to resolve modeling questions before they became review comments, concentrated detention in an otherwise unusable triangular tract, and used dock-high building design to reduce fill requirements — compressing both schedule and cost on a complex dual-jurisdiction floodplain project.

AT A GLANCE

Site Civil Design

● Full civil design for 42-acre business park including building pads, access roads, parking, and public road design

● Public road through the center of the project designed with minimum vertical clearance over an existing pipeline — a constraint that required careful vertical alignment

● Dock-high building design selected — raised dock elevations reduced the amount of fill required to bring building pads above the Base Flood Elevation, directly reducing detention volume requirements

● Detention concentrated in a triangular tract near the outfall — land otherwise unusable for building development repurposed as the site's primary drainage asset

Utility Infrastructure

● Water and sanitary tied into the City of Houston system

● Lift station minimized detention pond footprint — more buildable area preserved adjacent to the pond

Stormwater & Drainage

● Floodplain routing analysis commissioned before design submittal — resolved hydraulic modeling questions proactively, preventing them from becoming HCFCD review comments

● Dock-high building design directly reduced required detention volume — less fill means less impervious area impact means less required storage

● Triangular tract near outfall used for detention concentration — pond placement minimized travel distance to outfall and used land that had no building development potential

● Lift station at the pond further reduced the footprint needed for the detention facility

Permitting & Agency Coordination

● Harris County Flood Control District and City of Houston approvals pursued simultaneously — dual-jurisdiction floodplain project managed as a single coordinated submittal

● Floodplain routing analysis resolved HCFCD modeling questions before review — fewer comments, faster response cycle

● Pipeline vertical clearance resolved in the public road design before submittal

THE CHALLENGE

A 42-acre business park in the Harris County floodplain with dual-agency jurisdiction is one of the more complex permitting scenarios in the Houston market. HCFCD and the City of Houston have overlapping but distinct requirements, and a hydraulic modeling question that surfaces during review — rather than before — can add months to the approval timeline. Maximizing developable area in the floodplain also requires a specific engineering strategy: every decision about fill, building elevation, and pond placement has cascading effects on detention volume requirements and construction cost.

JRH's Approach

JRH started with the floodplain routing analysis — commissioning it before design began, not after the first review comment. This proactive step resolved the hydraulic modeling questions that HCFCD would have flagged, allowing the first submittal to go in clean. Dock-high building design was selected because it reduced fill requirements, which reduced detention volume, which reduced pond size. Detention was placed in the triangular tract near the outfall — land that served no building purpose was given the highest drainage value. A lift station further compressed the pond footprint.

The Result

A fully permitted 42-acre business park in the Harris County floodplain — with dual-agency approval pursued simultaneously and a building and drainage design strategy that minimized construction cost at every decision point.

RESULTS

● Dual-agency approval (HCFCD and City of Houston) pursued simultaneously — no sequential jurisdiction delays

● Floodplain routing analysis completed before submittal — modeling questions resolved proactively, not in review

● Dock-high building design reduced fill, detention volume, and construction cost — cascading savings from one design decision