This project development consists of a new campus for the Franklin Avenue Baptist Church’s expanding service.  The site is a 20 acre re-division of a pre-Katrina housing subdivision located in New Orleans East. This new location will be able to seat up to 3,500 people and has more than 1,300 parking spots on the premises.  While this project was fairly standard from an initial civil design standpoint during the course of the project design phase, the City of New Orleans implemented new stormwater management requirements, which required that the first 1.25” of rainfall for each storm event be retained on site.  Additionally, due to the RM-2E zoning where the site is located, it was required that a minimum of 50% of the site be constructed with permeable materials.

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In order to incorporate these parameters, MMI designed an infiltration/detention basin beneath pervious concrete paving, which extends through approximately 60% of the parking lot.  The system was designed to retain stormwater on site for infiltration, and to release it through a control structure at the perimeter of the site.  The storage is achieved through perforated under drainage within a gravel layer, with storage available in the pipe, the gravel and the permeable paving.  Overflow drains allow for overflow runoff to enter into city drainage infrastructure when the system is inundated by stormwater.