Dave's Hot Chicken: Restaurant Structural and Civil Engineering in Springfield, Oregon

Location: Mohawk Boulevard, Springfield, Oregon
Client/Owner: JCK Birdz LLC (franchisee)
Partners: CB Anderson Architects (architect); City of Springfield (land use and permitting); K & A Engineering (geotechnical); Rock Construction (general contractor)
Year: Land use and civil design 2021–2024; structure redesigned 2024; opened summer 2025
Size/scale: About three-quarters of an acre on a corner site; building of just under 3,000 sq ft
JBE services: Land use / site review, civil site and stormwater design, structural engineering (value engineering), construction support
Sector: Restaurants

Dave's Hot Chicken restaurant structural engineering project, Eugene, Oregon — photo 1

The challenge

The site on Mohawk Boulevard held an old bank building that had been abandoned, and vegetation was starting to take over the lot. Its parking lot drained straight into the city’s storm system with no treatment at all. Turning it into a new drive-through restaurant meant getting land use approval through the City of Springfield’s site review — twice, as the plan changed along the way — demolishing the old building, and rebuilding the lot from the ground up.

Then, with demolition under way, the restaurant’s original structural design came in over budget. The owner needed a structure that cost less to build and allowed changes to the layout.

Project photos

What we did

We worked with CB Anderson Architects and shepherded the project through Type II site review with the City of Springfield to obtain land use approval. We then provided the civil design for the new site: two rain gardens and filtered catch basins to treat runoff, parking, the drive-through lane and site circulation, sidewalks, ADA access and ramping, utility connections, and a trash enclosure kept separate from the storm system.

On the structural side, the architect asked us to re-engineer the restaurant, which had been designed by another firm. We value-engineered it with alternate framing — wood walls and prefabricated wood roof trusses — and delivered the structural drawings and calculations for permit alongside the civil package. During construction we answered the contractor’s questions on footings, slab reinforcement, framing and anchor bolts, and worked with the contractor on site to handle unforeseen issues, especially where the new civil design tied into the City of Springfield’s existing stormwater and sewer system.

The result

The project came together smoothly. Dave’s Hot Chicken opened on time in summer 2025 to the delight of the local community, and it is now a busy location for the owner — a welcome addition to a bustling intersection. It shows what our restaurant structural engineering in Springfield, Oregon looks like when one firm carries a project from land use through civil, structure and construction.