Walmart’s import and cross-dock facility in Mobile, Alabama serves as a logistical hub for several southeast regional distribution centers, with an anticipated 600 trailers turned every day. The facility is Walmart’s sixth import distribution center in the nation and, at just under 2.6 million square feet and 2,200 trailer staging spaces, it is one of the largest. The building is nearly three-quarters of a mile long, covers nearly 60 acres, and includes over 40 miles of racking.
The building was designed to meet Factory Mutual design requirements, including a maximum foreseeable loss wall, as well as the requirements of a high-velocity hurricane zone. Multiple offices, breakrooms, and restrooms are located throughout the facility to serve the associates working inside.
CSO’s ongoing work with Walmart includes the following services:
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- Continual improvements and refinements of multiple distribution and fulfillment center prototypes
- Architect of record for active distribution and fulfillment center projects
- Tenant Architect for developer-delivered distribution and fulfillment center projects
- Post-occupancy renovations across multiple fulfillment centers
- Developing, documenting, and maintaining prototypical components utilized across new builds and renovations of distribution and fulfillment centers
The goal of this project was to provide functionally efficient, flexible, and expandable areas within a facility that can be easily updated as workspace, technology, workflow processes, and number of employees change. The South Central Indiana Rural Electric Membership Corporation project includes a 50,000 square foot office, 37,000 square foot warehouse, basement, and community center that spreads over two stories.
The building was constructed with precast concrete walls, structural steel frame, and a metal roof. The design features include new LED lighting with sensors that provide more than 50% in energy savings, thick walls for better temperature and sound control, and restrooms equipped with sensor sinks, low-flow nozzles, low-flow toilets, and energy efficient hand dryers. In addition to the building features, there is a vehicle storage building that is approximately 18,000 square feet and a parking lot pre-wired for future electric car charging stations. Garmong provided construction services for the project.
Wisconsin-based Regal Beloit Corporation is a leading manufacturer of electric motors, electrical motion controls, power generation, and power transmission products serving markets throughout the world. Regal Beloit decided that it needed another distribution center along with the main one in Indianapolis, and this location was the right fit to service the western half of the United States.
CSO designed a new facility to house heavy industrial goods used to make metal components for HVAC and refrigerator applications, and to provide logistics support to Regal’s manufacturing plants across the border in Mexico. The facility is expandable to 300,000 square feet and was completed in less than a year.
CSO has been engaged on several of Walmart’s eCommerce fulfilment centers in multiple capacities. These massive buildings are dedicated to fulfilling Walmart.com’s online orders. They are highly automated buildings requiring extensive coordination with multiple Walmart departments. The buildings include automated shipping and receiving sorters, order consolidation sorters, pallet flow modules, manual and automated pack stations, and an extensive manual pick module. Additionally, office space, breakrooms, training rooms, restroom facilities, and secure entrances are included to support the needs of the associates who work within the building.
CSO’s relationship with Walmart varies based upon the project delivery for the facility. Our role includes:
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- Working with various Walmart departments to help establish building criteria in order to accommodate material handling
- Planning for accommodations for the associates working in the building
- Developing overall building plans that meet the specific needs of the project
- Coordinating with a general contractor for Walmart owned projects
- Coordinating with a developer for facilities leased by Walmart
- Ensuring that delivery of the project is as expected to the end users.
CSO’s ongoing work with Walmart includes the following services:
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- Continual improvements and refinements of multiple distribution and fulfillment center prototypes
- Architect of record for active distribution and fulfillment center projects
- Tenant Architect for developer-delivered distribution and fulfillment center projects
- Post-occupancy renovations across multiple fulfillment centers
- Developing, documenting, and maintaining prototypical components utilized across new builds and renovations of distribution and fulfillment centers
The CSO-designed expansion of this facility, including equipment, represents a $50 million investment to modernize and grow GE Aviation’s existing Hooksett manufacturing facility. The facility, with nearly 900 employees, manufactures rotating parts for GE’s military and commercial jet engines. The expansion will significantly increase manufacturing output and technological capacity for key components of GE’s next-generation LEAP engines.
This was the fourth large-scale project CSO has partnered with GE Aviation on, including two plants in Mississippi, $100 million LEAP assembly plant in Lafayette, Indiana, and a $120 million Brilliant Factory in Welland, Ontario, Canada.
Over the past six decades, Monarch has distinguished itself as an industry leader through its efficient operations and customer service and a community leader through its sustainability and service initiatives. They are focused on providing an ever-escalating standard of service to their customers and their ability to do so is directly impacted by the operation of their distribution facility. CSO worked with Monarch to ensure that their facility would meet the needs of their operation.
The distribution area utilizes an automated material handling system to palletize products for more than 80 daily delivery routes. The entry façade features an integral loading canopy anchored with a 2-story curtainwall and precast entry feature. The 2-story lobby, conference/training spaces, and a tasting room are all featured within the interior.
The facility includes 55,000 square feet of corporate headquarters office space, 457,500 square feet of warehouse space, 21,300 square feet of cold storage, and a 19,000 square foot fleet maintenance building.
Walmart consolidated two existing, older distribution centers into one new state-of-the-art apparel and footwear distribution center. The 1.2 million square foot building, located in Walmart’s back yard – Bentonville, Arkansas – serves up to 1,000 US Walmart stores.
Inside the building, CSO assisted with coordinating the infrastructure required to service a footwear sorter, apparel sorter, shipping sorter, multiple pick modules, extensive ceiling hung conveyors, design of multiple automation platforms, and a centralized corrugate waste vacuum system as well as planned expansions of the material handling systems within the building footprint.
Other features of the building include remote start-up areas with gathering space, personal lockers, device charging cabinets and workstations, multiple restroom and breakroom locations throughout the building, and conference and training rooms located adjacent to the main associate entrance.
CSO’s ongoing work with Walmart includes the following services:
-
- Continual improvements and refinements of multiple distribution and fulfillment center prototypes
- Architect of record for active distribution and fulfillment center projects
- Tenant Architect for developer-delivered distribution and fulfillment center projects
- Post-occupancy renovations across multiple fulfillment centers
- Developing, documenting, and maintaining prototypical components utilized across new builds and renovations of distribution and fulfillment centers
Festool relocated its central hub for U.S. and Canadian operations to just outside of Indianapolis. The facility includes a production warehouse, training facility, and a repair center.
CSO’s first project with Festool included a new building to house the North American corporate offices, a distribution/warehouse facility, and a national training center. During the design process, CSO worked closely with the parent company and their architects in Germany to provide a building that represented the corporate image reminiscent of their German facilities while utilizing traditional U.S. construction materials and techniques.
Ten years later, due to an increased presence in the North American and the need to add manufacturing capabilities to their facility, CSO worked with Festool again on a $6.8 million project that doubled their space and provided a new 2-story office space. CSO was tasked with providing an expansion that would complement the original building and that could be completed without interrupting day to day operations.
Just three years after the office expansion, Festool called on CSO once again to design an 80,000 square foot expansion that will be used primarily for assembly and distribution.
ASI Limited, an Indianapolis-based supplier, fabricator, and installer of architectural window and specialty systems, needed a new corporate headquarters after outgrowing their prior office, which was also designed by CSO.
ASI takes responsibility for enclosing a building’s exterior, including curtain walls, windows, metal panels, doors, and ornamental metals so the design needed to reflect the company’s progressive, forward-thinking corporate philosophy.
The building features 20,000 square feet of office space defined by a curtainwall at the corner of the building. The design incorporates Kalzip perforated screens that are attached using a specially designed grid system and concealed fasteners to anchor it to the curtain wall. The client was intrigued by the fact that, during the day, the screen was very visible as a design element but at night the screen took on a whole different appearance. In addition to providing a design element, the screen provided a shield from the afternoon sun on the southwest side of the building.
