Photo Credit: McCrory Construction
Pregis, a leading provider of protective packaging solutions, selected McCrory to provide design-build services for an $80-million manufacturing facility for its Performance Flexibles division to produce high-quality blown film for the food industry. The project required a combination of demolition, retrofit and new construction to repurpose an existing site. Leveraging design-build, McCrory executed this logistically difficult project from concept to completion in less than 10 months. Fast-tracking through design allowed McCrory to buy-out the project ahead of material price increases in early 2021 and pre-ordering 780 tons of steel was key to the project’s overall success.
The team demolished 30,000 SF of a 160,000 sq. ft. single-story facility, then added five stories of vertical construction in the same footprint. The resulting 102,000 sq. ft. production area is the most technologically advanced extrusion facility in North America. McCrory also renovated two stories of associated office space – bringing the total project size to 110,000 sq. ft. of retrofitted and new construction space. McCrory’s designers, and major subcontractors worked with the owner’s equipment vendors through McCrory’s BIM director to fully coordinate the facility ahead of installation, saving the project significant time and money and eliminating the need for rework in the field. The owner, Jon McClure stated, “From design to execution the project has been unbelievable. Through several projects I have gotten to know Don Warren, and I would highly recommend the McCrory team for any project.”
BIM Accelerates “Speed to Market” Project Success
From a construction standpoint, McCrory’s team had to overcome the challenges of working on a tight site constrained by rail/power lines on one side and an existing building on the other. With one way in and out of the site, meticulous planning and coordination was critical. “Speed to Market” was the main driving factor from Notice to Proceed in early Nov. 2020, to Sept. 1, 2021, for production of the first saleable product. McCrory chose proven, experienced design and engineering firms for Civil, Structural and Architectural disciplines that had worked with McCrory on several “speed to market” industrial process projects.
The most important key to the accelerated schedule (less than 10 months of design to construction completion) was the urgency applied to the design and prepurchase of structural steel in December 2020.The owner’s 3rd-party Process Design Engineer noted, “I have never experienced a project of this scale going from design to operational in 10 months… plant design for me was usually 18+ months. This design and construction would not have happened without the BIM coordination and modeling efforts of McCrory.” The resulting 102,000 sq. ft. production area is the most technologically advanced extrusion facility in North America and the operation was profitable within 4 months vs. standard of 8+ months.
Design-Build Team
| Client/Owner: | Pregis Performance Flexibles |
| Design-Build Firm: | McCrory Construction |
| Architect: | Architectural Design Center (ADC) |
| Engineer: | Fuller Group – Structural |
| Specialty Contractors: | Walker & Whiteside, Inc. – Electrical |
| Construction Duration: | 7.4 Months |
| Project Cost: | $16.3 Million |
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