The eight-story, cast-in-place concrete Guilford County Detention Center faced several challenges to cost-effective foundation design and construction. These included heavy structural loads, an underground tunnel, and subsurface conditions comprising low consistency-fill and alluvial soils associated with a former lake. Column loads of up to 950 kips would customarily be supported by deep foundations requiring deferral of foundation construction until tunnel construction was complete.

S&ME recommended supporting the building on spread foundations after replacing unsuitable soils with granular fill. This took advantage of tunnel construction excavations to remove unsuitable soils and allowed simultaneous foundation and tunnel construction.