resources, and we look to Ayres as an extension of those resources. It was nice to feel secure that Ayres had all the site work and warehouse done, which allowed our team to focus on production and other issues.”
Bush Brothers wasn’ t planning just for immediate needs, though; it was planning for a facility that can be used for 30 years or more.
“ We don’ t want to do this twice,” Tolan said.“ We had to take our best estimates and all these‘ what if’ scenarios. We wanted to put this infrastructure in for the warehouse and then extend it for the rest. That was a really big challenge.
“ We realize that we’ re not sure what the future looks like. There is constantly evolving technology in the food industry that affects production, which affects the layout and size of the facility.”
Greg Adams, Ayres Associates’ lead site engineer for the project, said the warehouse was designed for an additional 200-foot expansion without requiring any additional site grading, stormwater design, utility relocation, or rail reconstruction.
The new warehouse is 237,000 square feet and 41 feet tall, making it one of the biggest buildings in terms of volume that Ayres Associates has designed, said Mike Berg, who led the architectural / structural design for the warehouse. The project included about 1,900 square feet of shipping and distribution office space and connections to an existing warehouse and rail dock.
The new warehouse replaced several off-site storage facilities, which will save on freight costs, streamline inventory management, improve scheduling, and increase product security, said Todd Peterson, environmental facility manager for Bush Brothers.“ And every time you have freight, you have damage,” he said.
The warehouse was designed with an eye to the future. Products are stacked four pallets high now, but the building was designed extra tall with a flat floor and upgraded fire protection system to accommodate technology changes, such as storing products on racks.
The design also considered operator comfort and energy savings, with 40- to 50-foot-diameter fans pushing hot air back to the floor and a heat recovery system installed that will use hot water from the hydrostatic cookers to heat the warehouse.
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