Location: City of Rochester, Monroe County
Client: AJ Costello & Son
Project Type: Commercial/Retail
Completed: 2013-
Engineers: Robert Bringley, Matt Tomlinson
Project Description:
Marathon Engineering was engaged in early 2013 by Anthony J. Costello & Son Development for an exciting project: bringing a new national retail tenant to the Iola Campus at the intersection of Westfall Road and East Henrietta Road. Costco Wholesale was looking to establish a presence in Western New York and this site on the Erie Canal was selected for their first location.
The Iola Campus was originally established in the early 1900’s as a tuberculosis sanitorium. Further construction on the site housed a sewage treatment plant, power generation for both the site and the Monroe County Hospital, Monroe County Department of Transportation, and Monroe County Pure Waters headquarters. At the time of the redevelopment, many of these tenants had relocated and the existing buildings had fallen into serious disrepair.
Marathon Engineering jumped into conceptual design and analysis of ‘big-box’ retail impact to the previously identified environmental impacts. Our scope included:
- Modification of a previously approved Environmental Impact Statement for the revised plan
- Establishment of the ‘CityGate Planned Development District #11’ zoning with approvals by City Council
- Demolition of existing buildings, tunnels, and infrastructure while maintaining several historic cast concrete features incorporated into screen walls at the perimeter of the site.
- Advance approvals through coordination with two neighborhood groups, the City Project Review Committee, City Planning Commission, Manager of Zoning, and City Council.
- Design of the site which satisfied Costco’s maximum slope requirements for pad and parking lot, created a 150,000-SF building pad on a site with more than 40’ of grade change across it, and included utility design and stormwater management for the entire 44 acres.
- Obtained Army Corp of Engineers and NYS Canal Corps approval for stormwater outfalls to the Erie Canal
- Re-routing of the Iola trunk sewer which has a capacity of up to 5 million gallons per day while the sewer remained in service
All the above items and more were coordinated, designed, and approved from March 2013 to November 2013. Further development subsequent to the Costco anchor included 4 outparcel buildings created in the northwest corner of the site, framing a pocket park aligned on the axis of the Iola Campus access drive, and preservation of many historic sycamore trees dating back to the original construction. Additional projects completed to date include Five Star Bank, located at the northeast corner of the site fronting on Westfall Road, and REI Co-op which is a high end outdoor sporting goods store bordering the Erie Canal.
There are many opportunities to construct additional development on the site that we look forward to working on in the future.
