Discovery Corner Live Work Townhomes

Located around the vibrant Discovery Corner plaza in Bend, Oregon, the Discovery Corner Live Work Townhomes integrate high-density urban living with street-level commercial space. The development spans 5 three-story duplex buildings totaling 10 individual units on 10 platted lots, featuring ground-floor commercial suites with luxury residential units on the upper two floors.

Ashley & Vance Engineering provided the complete civil and structural engineering services to bring this mixed-use project to life while executing custom structural adaptations for each unit and navigating individual permitting through the City of Bend. On the civil side, our team engineered individual lot grading, finish floor elevations, accessible routes, lot-by-lot stormwater drainage systems, and utility connections. Structurally, we engineered full framing and foundation plans for all five ~8,000-square-foot buildings and provided calculations for the site’s monument sign.

Highlights:

• Individualized Lot Infrastructure: Custom-engineered grading plans, finish floor elevations, and dedicated lot-by-lot stormwater drainage systems for all 10 properties, guaranteeing compliant ADA accessible routes and seamless integration into the plaza landscape.

• Open-Concept Hybrid Framing: Combined conventional Type V wood framing with high-capacity plywood shear walls, wood-framed floor and roof diaphragms, and strategic steel framing to create expansive, column-free commercial layouts below upper-level living quarters.

• Geotechnical Foundation Design: Integrated reinforced slab-on-grade floors with heavy-duty shallow foundations engineered directly to the site’s soil mechanics to support dynamic multi-story loads and high-traffic ground level use.

• Tailored Multi-Unit Structural Solutions: Adapted calculations and structural detailing to account for distinct layout variations across the 10 units, streamlining individual building permit approvals through the City of Bend.

By bridging detailed civil sitework with robust structural engineering, our team helped deliver a flexible, high-density live-work community built to serve Bend’s growing urban core.

Awards:

• 1st Place – AIA Oregon People’s Choice Awards