Outdoors Specialist, Inc. Overcomes Massive Challenges
Billboard’s proximately to building demands extreme creativity to locate billboard adjacent to high volume traffic corridor.
Location – Quincy, MA
When first evaluating this opportunity there were definite mountains to climb in order to accomplish our goals. The soil boring report first told us that we would be drilling 52’ deep into some granite and would have water to deal with. To complicate matters we were within 2′ of a building and within 8’of underground gasoline tanks which we would need to remove fluid from. The property size would be an additional hurdle as it was very small.
OSI laid out the structure on the property and determined it would fit being a full flag cantilever unit and would be built so it hovered over the building. The foundation was then designed and the sign was engineered. The foundation was to be 52’ overall depth with 15’of the top being cased and filled with foam to allow the bottom part of the column to move with the sign. All the engineering was based on protecting the building and underground gasoline storage tanks.
We back hoed the top of the foundation and installed the outer wall casing (7’ x 15’) then filled with a pea gravel material that protected the tanks.
We mobilized our drill rig and water tankard and began processed drilling into the granite and other material. Through many ups and downs we drilled for days while installing another sleeve to protect from losing the foundation and more importantly collapsing the building or the storage tanks underneath while we drilled. When we finally reached our target depth we de-watered and installed our column inside the inner sleeve and set up our pump truck then concrete was delivered and poured to within 15’from the top.
After proper curing we de-watered the 15’above the concrete then mobilized our foam truck and began to fill the hole. After the hole was filled we capped it with 6”of sandy grout and installed a moving safety cover to also protect the cavity from accepting water or any loose dirt.
The upper column and unit were built entirely in the air because of the limits of the property but the sign turned out very nice and is a functional part of the Outdoor Advertising Group that we built it for. We are very proud of the Quincy Job build that towers 85’tall over I-95.
Outdoor Specialist, Inc. will take on complicated billboard design, fabrication, and installations that other outdoor advertising structure builders choose not to do.
