CASE STUDY 30 — Storage Units Athens, TX | Self-Storage Civil Engineering Design

PROJECT OVERVIEW
JRH Engineering provided complete civil engineering design for a self-storage facility in Athens, Texas, requiring a new fire line and TxDOT coordination. The development goal was to fit the maximum number of rentable storage units on the property. JRH designed the fire line, then worked backwards from the fire truck turning radius to optimize building placement — fitting more units in the same footprint without sacrificing fire code compliance.

AT A GLANCE

Site Civil Design

● Full civil design for self-storage facility including building layout, grading, paving, and access

● Fire line designed to serve the full facility from TxDOT infrastructure connection

● Building placement optimized around the fire truck turning radius — working backwards from the turning requirement to maximize the number of buildings and units that fit within the footprint

● TxDOT coordination for fire line connection and site access

Permitting & Agency Coordination

● City of Athens fire code compliance achieved through turning radius-optimized building layout

● TxDOT coordination for access and fire line connection completed concurrently with city review

● Complete submission package on first submittal

THE CHALLENGE
Self-storage facilities live on unit count — more units per acre means more revenue. Fire code requirements for truck access and turning radii impose constraints on building placement that, if treated as hard boundaries rather than design inputs, result in fewer units than the site can actually support.

JRH's Approach
Rather than laying out buildings and then checking whether fire trucks could turn, JRH started with the turning radius and designed buildings around it. Working backwards from the fire truck's swept path, JRH identified the exact minimum clearances required and placed buildings at those minimums — fitting more units into the same footprint than a conventional layout would have produced, while fully satisfying fire code compliance.

The Result
A fully permitted self-storage facility with more rentable units than a conventional layout would have delivered — achieved by treating fire code requirements as design inputs rather than post-design constraints.

RESULTS

● Unit count maximized by designing building layout around fire truck turning radius rather than around it

● Fire code compliance achieved — turning radius requirements met at every point in the facility

● TxDOT and City of Athens approvals completed concurrently