A large construction project for a store was completed in December 2004 in the area of the 53th Street and Caracas Avenue in a centric commercial area in the city of Bogotá. The building has two store levels and four parking basementlevels down to 14 m depth, covering 7500 m2 of terrain.

Coluvial deposits with a depth of 26 to 36 m composed of layers of sands, silts and organic clays are found at the site overlying claystones. The ground water level was about 4 m deep with the sand layers having water pressures.

The great construction challenge besides the short time for the construction of the store was to be able to develop a project under the complex geotechnical conditions that are present in the area. Two projects had been attempted previously at the site, in 1971 and in 1988, that had failed because of stability problems with the excavation and construction of the piles. The problems were mainly induced by instability of the soils by
water flow.