Florida contractor faces challenge on retaining wall project

Critelli LLC uses a Bobcat T300 compact track loader to build retaining walls in Florida.

Reggie Critelli was only 17 years old when he started his landscaping business. “I realized, in Florida, there’s always grass that needs to be cut,” he says. The landscape contractor, who started his business in 1990, estimates that when he was a senior in high school, he was making more money from his landscape business than his teachers were making in their salaries.

Critelli was not supposed to be in the landscape business. Most members of his family, including his father, have made a career in the armed forces. The expectation was for Critelli to follow the family line. Critelli didn’t find the prospect of drill sergeants barking orders at him attractive. He wanted to be his own boss, and friends who were already running their own landscape businesses helped him get his start.

Today, Critelli is the owner of Critelli LLC, a contracting company that builds retaining walls, performs landscape maintenance, and installs fences, water drainage systems and pavers. Critelli installed a retaining wall at the new Eagle’s Landing development in Ocoee, Fla., that proved challenging.

Highway 437, also known as Ocoee Apopka Road, borders the east side of the Eagle’s Landing development. On the other side of the highway is a water retention and reclamation area. Critelli was hired to build a retaining wall that would support the highway. This retaining wall would face the development, which is 30 feet below Ocoee Apopka Road.

Two problems made this an unusual job for Critelli. First, the contractor discovered water from the water retention center was seeping across the highway to the area where the retaining wall was to be constructed. Second, the city would not allow the contractor to close any part of the busy highway to construct the retaining wall.

Once the water was discovered, the engineering firm that designed the wall came up with a solution to the problem. It was decided to divert the water by installing a drainage pipe 10 feet below the footing of the retaining wall. The drainage pipe runs parallel to the highway and is connected to pipes that return the water to the retention area. Critelli and his crew installed these pipes.

Critelli LLC Bobcat T300 compact track loaders perform many tasks on the job, from unloading trucks to compacting soil.

Once the drainage pipe was installed, Critelli could focus on the retaining wall. The finished 4,500-foot-long wall has two and three tiers in some areas and is a single-tiered wall in others. On one stretch, the first tier of the wall is 30 feet high, above the first tier is a second tier eight feet tall and on top of the second tier is a third tier that is a six-foot tall brick wall. “The type of walls that we construct are anywhere from one-foot tall to sixty feet high,” says Critelli. ‘Anything over 20 feet tall is unusual, and this was not an average wall.”

Critelli and his crew used two Bobcat® T300 compact track loaders to build the wall. With pallet fork attachments, the compact track loaders unload pallets of brick from semi trucks and transport the pallets to the jobsite. The T300 has a rated operating capacity of 3,000 pounds, so the machine easily moves these pallets of material.

“We use compact track loaders because we are always working in dirt or clay,” says Critelli. “The compact track loaders give us the traction and pushing force we need that we couldn’t get from other machines.”

Critelli says that the compact track loaders are beneficial when working in Florida weather. There are times of the year when it rains part of almost every day. “The weather doesn’t bother us because the compact track loaders can work in the mud,” says Critelli.

Critelli’s machines have enclosed cabs to keep him and his employees dry when it rains and cool when the sun is out because the cabs are air conditioned. Critelli says that it is important to equip his machines with air conditioning and radios in the cab to keep his employees productive. “The more you keep the guys comfortable and let them enjoy what they do, the better the results they’ll give you,” says Critelli. “If you put someone in an open cab, the heat and dust makes the work less enjoyable.”

Once the compact track loaders placed the pallets of blocks, Critelli’s crew built the wall by hand. The wall contains a total of 46,000 blocks that weigh 74 pounds each. After a couple of layers of blocks were in place, Critelli’s crew used buckets on the compact track loaders to place aggregate behind the block. The crew put dirt fill behind the aggregate. Critelli placed the fill behind the wall with an excavator.

Because the city would not allow any part of the highway to be closed, Critelli and his crew constructed the retaining wall from the face side rather than from the rear of the wall, which is the way walls are usually built. There was not enough space between the wall and the highway for the equipment to work without closing part of the highway. “The site developer brought us backfill dirt with a 30-ton articulated dump truck, which can’t go on the highway anyway,” says Critelli. The excavator scoops the dirt over the wall. The compact track loaders spread and level the dirt behind the wall. After leveling, a vibratory roller attachment on the compact track loader compacts the dirt. Once this cycle is complete, it begins again until the wall is finished. The dirt is placed and compacted in six inch lifts. “We are building this tall wall block by block and eight inches at a time,” says Critelli.

Critelli’s crew saves time switching between the compact track loader attachments because the machines have the Bobcat Power Bob-Tach™ attachment mounting system. This system allows the operator to switch between nonhydraulic attachments by flipping a switch inside the cab. Critelli also has other attachments for his compact track loaders. His machines use a rotary cutter to clear thick grass and brush in areas to be developed, a grapple to clear tree branches and other debris at the work site, an auger to dig holes for fence posts or to plant trees and a tree fork to move and plant trees. “We use the Power Bob-Tach probably 50 times a day to switch between attachments,” says Critelli.

Looking back, Critelli knows that his success is not all his own doing. “Not a lot of people say it, but the reason people get where they are in life is because of the help of others,” says Critelli. He is thankful for the assistance of Bobcat of Orlando, his equipment dealer; Seminole Masonry, a masonry contractor that hires his company for work; Anchor Block, his retaining wall supplier; Yovaish Engineering, the company that engineered the wall on this project; and M/I Homes, the developer of Eagle’s Landing.

“It’s important to have friends, family and good companies to work with and that trust and support you,” says Critelli.

Critelli’s business is now as old as he was when he first got into landscaping. Today, with the help of his partner businesses, his employees and his equipment, Critelli’s business has matured into a respected and successful enterprise. With the Eagle’s Landing retaining wall finished, Critelli moves on to the next job, glad to be his own boss and happy he avoided those drill sergeants years ago.