Project Name: Century Center Island Park Renovation
Location: South Bend, Indiana

Gibson‐Lewis served as the general contractor on this high profile project at the Century Center Convention Center for the City of South Bend. The project consisted of demolishing the existing site, new integral color concrete pavement, concrete pavers, landscaping, site lighting, cosmetic upgrades to the access bridge, and provisions for a new tent structure to allow banquets to be held on the island park. This project was unique for the fact that it was on an island only accessible from an 8' wide x 80'
long bridge that was only capable of supporting a maximum concentrated weight of 1500 lbs. This proved challenging in getting excavation machinery, 300 cubic yards of concrete material, over 6 tons of concrete pavers, 48 8'‐12' trees, 300 square yards of sod, nearly 1000 yards of fill, stone sub‐base, landscape stone, and mulch onto the island.

During the rich industrial history of South Bend, this island supported a power house for the Oliver Plow foundry. Many remnants of the power plant were found in the sub soils of the island that had left voids in the fill materials that extend down to the bed of the river. To rectify the integrity of the island structure, over 5' deep of fill material was removed and grout was injected into the soils through ports placed every 5'. Over 60 cyds of grout was injected into the soils to provide adequate compaction and soil bearing pressure to support the island surface improvements. Gibson‐Lewis played a crucial role in working with the owner and engineer in the remedy of these unforeseen conditions with our quick actions in producing a plan and execution of that plan to minimize the impact on the schedule.

The finished product received praise from many in the South Bend area and the construction industry and won the Outstanding Concrete Achievement Award from the Indiana Ready Mix Concrete Association in the category of decorative/stamped concrete pavement for the integral colored concrete pavement.

Contract Value: $600,000
Completed: September 2009