RLG Consulting Engineers provided Structural Engineering services to the Touchmark at Emerald Lake senior living facility, located in McKinney, Texas. This 442,000 gross square foot complex includes seven buildings, built to cater to the needs of residents, as well as a parking garage.
The complex includes several structures: three 5-story woodframe independent living buildings, a single-story wood-frame BOH (back of house) building, a three-story wood-frame independent living on two levels of elevated concrete with amenities, a two-story parking garage, Assisted living, memory care, and amenities building - 2 story load bearing light gauge on 3 levels of elevated concrete. The structural design incorporates a variety of materials, including structural steel, wood framing, concrete masonry units (CMU), post-tensioned concrete, podium construction, and load-bearing coldformed metal framing. Shear walls, moment frames, drilled piers, and slab-on-grade foundations were also strategically implemented.
One of the significant challenges faced during the project was coordinating expansion joint locations, this required planning and close collaboration between RLG Structural Engineers and the architectural team to ensure that the expansion joints were strategically placed to accommodate the different framing materials used across the interconnected buildings.