Geotechnical & Engineering Services for Merrillville and Northwest Indiana.

Subsurface investigations, soil borings, foundation design recommendations, and geotechnical reports. Northwest Indiana's geotechnical environment is more layered than most project teams anticipate — the Calumet Lacustrine Plain across northern Lake County, the Valparaiso Moraine complex through central Lake and Porter Counties, and the Kankakee Outwash and Lacustrine Plain to the south, with unconsolidated deposits ranging from about 40 feet near the Kankakee River to more than 250 feet near the Valparaiso Moraine. Our engineers know these conditions.

Serving: Merrillville · Gary · Hammond · Crown Point · Hobart · Portage · Valparaiso · Chesterton · Munster · Schererville · Dyer · Highland · East Chicago · Michigan City · La Porte and surrounding communities

Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments, wetlands delineation, and environmental due diligence per ASTM E1527-21. Indiana Department of Environmental Management and Army Corps familiarity. Lender-ready reports delivered by licensed environmental professionals with decades of Northwest Indiana practice — including brownfield due diligence along the Calumet industrial corridor, on former steel and heavy-manufacturing parcels, and on the environmentally impaired properties the RDA's Land Development Entity is working to bring back into active use along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Serving: Greater Northwest Indiana · Lake County · Porter County · LaPorte County · Newton County · Jasper County · Starke County · Pulaski County

On-site concrete testing, soils and compaction inspection, structural steel, post-tensioned concrete, firestop, masonry, and IBC Chapter 17 special inspections. Same-day concrete break results. Standard reports in 5–7 days. Certified technicians available on your pour schedule — not ours. Serving healthcare, gaming, hospitality, industrial, port, transit, and mixed-use projects across the region.

Serving: Merrillville · Gary · Hammond · Crown Point · Portage · Munster · Michigan City · the I-65, I-80/94, I-90 (Indiana Toll Road), and US-30 corridors

Merrillville — The Heart of the Region

Merrillville is running one of the strongest development years in its history, with 892 building permits issued through July 1 representing more than $126 million in estimated construction value. The Town Council's $33 million redevelopment bond package — funding a new Fire Station 73 and the rezoning of the former Broadmoor Country Club site for residential PUD — is layering public infrastructure into an already-active commercial pipeline along the Broadway corridor. NIPSCO's headquarters campus on East 86th Avenue, the AmeriPlex at the Crossroads business park, and Amazon's 141,000-square-foot delivery station together make Merrillville the region's most active mid-corridor development market.

Gary — Convention Center, Casino & Blight Elimination

The Northwest Indiana RDA has approved a resolution clearing the way for up to $150 million in bonds to finance the new Lake County Convention Center adjacent to Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana in Gary. Hard Rock's own campus expansion — a 300-room hotel and roughly $100 million convention center partially funded by the casino — layers on top of that. Meanwhile, the City of Gary's $80 million blight elimination program is preparing thousands of parcels for redevelopment across the downtown and near-downtown neighborhoods. This is Phase I ESA work, environmental due diligence, geotechnical investigation, and special inspection at the scale Alt & Witzig serves as standard practice.

Franciscan Health Crown Point & Healthcare Construction

Franciscan Health Crown Point's $200 million, seven-story, 165-bed flagship hospital at the southeast corner of I-65 and US-231 opened in January 2024, followed by the groundbreaking of a 71,000-square-foot, three-story cancer center on the same campus. The transformation of the former Franciscan Health Crown Point campus — including a YMCA Sportscenter build already underway by Tonn and Blank — extends the healthcare pipeline across multiple sites. Combined with Methodist Hospitals' regional footprint, healthcare capital construction in Lake County continues at a pace that demands the certifications, staffing depth, and reporting discipline Alt & Witzig has built its reputation on.

Steel, Nippon & Heavy Industry

U.S. Steel's Gary Works — acquired by Nippon Steel in the $14.1 billion buyout that closed in 2024 — is at the center of a promised $14 billion multi-facility reinvestment in America's steel base, with a $60 million pig iron caster at Gary Works already commissioned as part of the company's metallics strategy. Heavy industrial construction on active mill sites and adjacent supplier parcels demands geotechnical experience with legacy fill, slag, and impaired subsurface conditions — the kind of work that separates firms with regional depth from firms that visit occasionally.

Ports of Indiana-Burns Harbor & the Logistics Corridor

Ports of Indiana-Burns Harbor hosts more than 30 companies including 15 steel-related tenants and three steel mills, and has been in a record construction season with more than $77 million in infrastructure and expansion projects and a $10 million, 84,000-square-foot new warehouse — the port's first new warehouse in 25 years. Combined with the I-65, I-80/94, I-90 Indiana Toll Road, and US-30 industrial and logistics corridors — and Northwest Indiana's proximity to two-thirds of the U.S. consumer market — this is a sustained large-footprint development pipeline our team serves daily.

South Shore Line — Double Track & the Monon Corridor

The South Shore Line's Double Track NWI project added nearly 18 miles of new track across a 26-mile corridor from Michigan City to Gary, and the new Monon Corridor (formerly West Lake Corridor) opened an 8-mile southern extension from Hammond Gateway to Munster/Dyer — the first genuinely new commuter-rail branch in the region in decades. Transit-oriented development around new and enhanced stations across Hammond, East Chicago, Gary, Miller, Ogden Dunes, Portage/Ogden Dunes, Dune Park, Beverly Shores, and Michigan City is generating the kind of mixed-use, adaptive-reuse, and infill construction pipeline that requires environmental due diligence, geotechnical investigation, and construction testing as a coordinated program.

Lake County

Porter County

LaPorte County

Newton County

Starke County

Pulaski County

Jasper County