The project: The Chestnut at University City is a 433,000-sf, 30-story mixed-use residential project on a 1.36-acre site adjacent to The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. IMEG provided structural engineering design services and parking consultation for the luxury, 420-apartment building, which includes amenity spaces, coworking areas, lounges, a sky deck pool, ground floor retail, and below-grade parking.

Structural design highlights: The building is a cast-in-place two-way flat plate floor slab concrete shear wall building. The parking/foundation level incorporates a below-grade stormwater management system below the parking ramp, loading dock and south-end ground floor retail coordinated around drilled pier foundations. The parking level slab is typically a 5” slab-on-grade; however, the northwest portion of this level (which is lower than the parking level slab in the area of the electrical room), incorporates an 18-inch thick pressure raft/mat slab to resist uplift loads for this portion of the slab located below the water table.

The outcome: The new building successfully integrated into the historic area of University City through careful consideration of its surrounding neighbors. It also helps meet the housing needs of The University of Pennsylvania students.