Pantheon properties at the forefront of new construction technology.

Pantheon Properties, an entity of New York-based The Pantheon Companies and one of the leading developers of industrial, office, mixed-use and multi-family real estate projects, broke ground this week in Bayonne, New Jersey, on a more than-33,000 s/f expansion of Pantheon's existing warehouse facility on New Hook Road.

But the new construction project will not be built on a conventional building site.

Pantheon and general contractor River Drive Construction will be employing a pioneering new technology to stabilize compressible soil and to support various structures-from large commercial buildings to highway retaining structures-that must be built over it.

Pantheon has been a development industry leader since it began working in 2005 to ensure that this soil-stabilizing method, an innovative and inexpensive option to driving pilings, received approval for the first time from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP).

The soil-stabilizing process begins when a long, rotating needle-like drill bit pierces the surface soil and moves downward, carving a column-shaped hole in the ground. As the drill bit rotates deeper into the ground, it compresses the soil from side to side without damaging its consistency.

After the drill bit withdraws, it injects a grout mixture with enough force to displace and compress the soil along the sides of the hole as it creates an in-ground column usually 12 to 18 inches in diameter. Surface soil, which is often tainted, is not drawn down into the lower layers.

The concrete and gravel mixture then bonds to the soils and improves its solidity. The binding of these soils prevents water and contaminants from seeping in.

Through its early, staunch support and proative appeals to the NJDEP, Pantheon played a pivotal role in enabling many New Jersey developers to use this new ground-stabilizing method, thereby allowing a number of them to significantly trim their project budgets.

"The state had issued a NFA notice on the site," says Zack Hitchcock, vice president of Pantheon Properties. "We hired environmental consultants to advise us on which soil-stabilizing methods the DEP would approve. Dynamic compaction was not an option, nor was driving pilings unless we put caissons around them. Ultimately, the the state approved this new stabilization method and we moved ahead."