NOAA Marine Operations Center – Pacific

KPFF provided survey, civil, structural, marine, and mechanical engineering, and dredging design services for the homeport facility for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific fleet, located in Yaquina Bay. KPFF served as the prime design consultant for all in-water facilities and worked closely with the project’s environmental consultants and agency staff to facilitate timely review and approvals of required state and federal permits. Survey services included quality control for the design base mapping. The extensive review process involved boundary, floodplain, topographic, and bathymetric data from multiple sources.

In-water construction included a 1,300-ft-long by 35-ft-wide concrete pier, which provides over 1,500 ft of berthing for up to six ships. One end of the pier incorporated fendering on both sides to provide the 1,500 berth length on a 1,300-ft structure. The project required over 60,000 cy of dredging to provide the necessary berth depth for the ocean class NOAA vessels and to create an eel grass mitigation site. The project also included two 230-ft access trestles and 200 ft of floating dock for small craft moorage.

NOAA’s requirement for occupancy of the facility by spring meant that the dock structure had to be completed within seven months from the start of the in-water work window. In order to meet this schedule, the design team worked closely with the Port’s CMGC contractor to develop a precast superstructure design to eliminate the need to build falsework over water.

In addition to using standard precast deck panels, the team developed an innovative precast bent beam which provided flexural continuity between the precast beam and pile supports to reduce deflections due to seismic and wind forces.

Landside development included five acres of site work and utilities, as well as an 18,000-sf office building, a 25,000-sf warehouse facility, a 50,000-sf site laydown area, and parking.