Multifamily structural engineer for DFW apartment developers
Structural design for wood-frame and podium apartment buildings across Dallas–Fort Worth, from the first site plan through framing inspections. Foundations sized for expansive clay, lateral systems that hold up under value engineering, and a firm accountable to the developer, the architect, and the general contractor at the same time.
- Who we work with
- Developers · Architects · GCs
- Deliverable
- Permit-ready CDs and calculations
- Systems
- Wood frame · Podium · Wrap · Garden
- Service area
- DFW metro
What this covers
What multifamily structural engineering covers
Apartment buildings are repetitive, fast, and unforgiving of coordination errors: a detail that is wrong once is wrong two hundred times. The work rewards engineers who have carried the same product types through many buildings, which is the experience Glacier Point brings to each one.
Wood-frame apartment buildings
Three- and four-story Type V and Type III buildings: floor and roof framing, bearing and shear walls, diaphragms, and the connection hardware that lets a wood building resist wind.
Podium buildings
Wood frame over a post-tensioned or conventionally reinforced concrete podium, with a transfer level designed for the mismatch between the parking grid below and the unit walls above.
Foundations for expansive soil
Drilled piers and grade beams, structural slabs, or stiffened post-tensioned slabs, selected from the geotechnical report along with the crawl space, void, or moisture conditioning the clay calls for.
Garages and site structures
Wrap and stand-alone parking structures, carports, pool structures, clubhouses, trash enclosures, and the retaining walls a graded apartment site rarely avoids.
Lateral and vibration design
Shear wall layouts and hold-downs that respect unit plans, corridor diaphragms, and floor vibration criteria so long-span units do not feel bouncy underfoot.
Construction administration
Truss and hardware submittals, RFIs, and site observations at foundation, podium, and framing milestones, kept at the pace a multifamily schedule demands.
Typical projects
Typical multifamily projects
Product types common to suburban and urban infill sites across the metro.
- 01Garden-style three-story walk-up apartment communities
- 02Four-story wood frame over a one-level concrete podium
- 03Wrap buildings around a precast or cast-in-place parking structure
- 04Townhome and build-to-rent communities with shared foundations
- 05Senior living and assisted living buildings
- 06Student housing near North Texas campuses
- 07Clubhouse, leasing center, and amenity structures
- 08Site retaining walls and pool structures on graded sites
Our approach
How we run a multifamily project
The site plan stage sets the structural cost of an apartment project, so we get involved early and stay through framing.
- 01
Site and product fit
Foundation options for the soil report, podium versus slab-on-grade economics, and a unit-plan grid that keeps the framing repetitive.
- 02
Design development
Shear wall and bearing wall layouts coordinated with unit plans and corridors, podium transfer design, and foundations designed to the geotechnical report.
- 03
Construction documents
Stamped plans, schedules, and typical details a framer recognizes, coordinated with the truss designer, the architect, and the civil engineer ahead of the permit submittal.
- 04
Construction
Prompt turnaround on truss and hardware submittals, RFI responses from Glacier Point, and milestone site observations.
Codes and standards
Codes and standards for multifamily buildings
Apartment buildings are Residential Group R-2 occupancies under the International Building Code, which in turn references the wood, concrete, masonry, and post-tensioning standards below.
Multifamily plan review and inspection requirements vary by city. Building department pages for the cities where we work most:
- IBC (ICC)
- International Building Code: construction types, height and area limits, and structural requirements for R-2 buildings.
- ASCE 7
- Design loads and load combinations, including wind on low-rise wood buildings.
- AWC NDS and SDPWS
- Wood design and the Special Design Provisions for Wind and Seismic: shear walls, diaphragms, and hold-downs.
- ACI 318
- Structural concrete for podiums, piers, grade beams, and parking structures.
- PTI
- Post-Tensioning Institute standards for post-tensioned podium slabs and slabs on expansive soil.
- TMS 402/602
- Masonry for stair and elevator shafts, trash enclosures, and site walls.
Questions
Multifamily structural questions
What does structural design cost per unit?
Structural fees depend more on building count, construction type, and how much the site complicates the foundation than on unit count. A garden-style community on a flat site and a podium building on a sloped infill lot are different efforts. After reviewing the site plan and soil report, we propose a written fee per building type.
Wood frame versus podium: what are the structural tradeoffs?
Wood frame on grade is the least expensive structure per square foot but needs land for surface parking. A podium puts parking under the building and adds a concrete transfer level whose cost is justified by density. The podium level is where the structural difficulty concentrates: unit walls above rarely line up with parking columns below, so the transfer slab or beams have to carry that discontinuity.
How does expansive soil affect multifamily foundations?
It usually decides them. High-plasticity clay across the metro moves with the seasons, and long, lightly loaded wood buildings show that movement as cracked drywall and sticking doors. The choice is usually between two systems, drilled piers with grade beams and a structural slab, or a stiffened post-tensioned slab, and it is made from the geotechnical report's swell potential and the owner's tolerance for maintenance.
Can shear walls be moved to fit the unit plans?
Within limits, and the earlier the conversation the more room there is to work with. Shear walls need to stack, connect to the diaphragm, and land on a foundation. We coordinate the lateral layout against the architect's unit plans during design development so the walls that carry the building are also the walls that make sense for the units.
Do you handle construction administration on apartment projects?
Yes, and on multifamily it matters: truss and hardware submittals arrive in volume and on a schedule, field questions come daily during framing, and a slow answer stops a crew. Questions go straight to Glacier Point, not to a coordinator.
Related services
Related services
- 02
Commercial
Mixed-use ground floors, leasing centers, and commercial outparcels that share the site, the soil report, and the permit schedule with the apartments.
View service → - 06
Retaining Walls & Global Stability
Graded apartment sites nearly always need site walls, and we design them to the same geotechnical report as the buildings.
View service →
Start a project
Planning an apartment community or a podium building?
Send the site plan, the soil report, or the architect's schematic set. We will review it and come back with questions about the site, not a form letter.
This page is general information about structural engineering practice and is not engineering advice for a specific site or project. Glacier Point provides sealed engineering only under a signed engagement agreement.