Story

The owner purchased an existing Ole Tacos restaurant. Their desire was to remove the existing building, design and construct a new building to all current Dunkin' Donuts corporate specifications and do so with minimal alterations to the existing site. The site was a corner lot with a curb cut to each street, whose figurations could not be easily changed. Compounding the site design problem was the fact that the entire property was in the flood plain of a local tributary to the nearby Grand River. Omega worked directly with the State of Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Federal Engineering Management Agency (FEMA) to meet their guidelines for main floor elevation heights, minimal site fill, and to receive a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA) which allowed the building to be exempted from the Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM), eliminating the requirement for the owner to purchase expensive flood insurance. Although Omega Architects typically use civil engineering consultants, the Omega staff possesses the ability to resolve complex site design issues.