Encompass Health Headquarters – Liberty Park

While it was known that the Liberty Park property off I-459 had underground coal mines, the extensive nature the mines had yet to be determined prior to BHATE working on the Urban Center at Liberty Park in the early 1990s.

In 2017, Encompass Health (formerly known as HealthSouth) chose the property just south of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta-Birmingham for their new headquarters.

BHATE performed a preliminary geotechnical screening and determined much of the property was underlain by an underground coal mine.  The presence of the mine and the lack of a map showing the extent of the mine presented a complicated geotechnical challenge.  We conducted an extensive subsurface exploration that consisted of visually mapping the undocumented mine to the extent practical, drilling exploratory soil test borings, air-rotary borings, and rock coring, as well as borehole camera recordings.

The subsurface exploration results were used to develop recommendations for ground improvement (grout injection to create artificial pillars to support the mine roof) and the design of the buildings including special foundation (permanently cased drilled shafts extending to below the mine floor) and floor slab (heavily reinforced and structurally supported) designs.

Chuck Burgin, P.E., P.G., and the BHATE team provided all geotechnical consultation, construction materials testing and Special Inspections on this challenging site and worked closely with Corporate Realty (Developer), Gensler (Architect) and Brasfield & Gorrie in construction of this building.

Encompass Health opened its 200,000 SF, cast-in-place concrete, 7-story headquarters with a 3-story parking garage in 2018. This is another great addition to the list of corporate headquarters in Birmingham and we are proud to be associated with this project and be part of this team.

With our extensive knowledge of the site, BHATE was chosen to work on additional projects within Liberty Park including residential developments, the Town Village and the Church at Liberty Park.