In the fall of 2017, Filcon Construction LLC and Land Design & Development Inc. approached Redi-Rock K.I.T. to help design and construct a major retaining wall to support an access road to a new housing development in Fincastle Farm subdivision along Harrods Creek.

To tackle the challenge, Redi-Rock K.I.T. partnered with JC Hines & Associates to engineer a 35-foot-tall retaining wall along the subdivision’s steep hillside. This wall would serve as the structural backbone for the road leading into the development.

After consulting with ECS Southeast, a local geotechnical engineering firm, our team developed a design that would minimize excavations, secure new fill, and satisfy global stability on the existing hillside.

To meet critical slope stability requirements, the wall was engineered using a Positive Connection (PC) design. Geogrid reinforcement was integrated to anchor the blocks to the compacted crushed stone fill, providing tensile resistance at the top and bottom of each block unit. This approach resulted in a structurally redundant mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) system.

The completed wall reaches a maximum height of 35 feet and has a face area of 11,588 square-feet. The final design incorporated 1,990 Redi-Rock units, totaling over 3 million pounds of block weight. Construction was completed by Redi-Rock K.I.T.’s in-house installation team in 2021.