Nicholas Meats
Project
Nicholas Meat was founded more than 30 years ago in the Sugar Valley of central Pennsylvania. Due to the growth of this family-owned business, L.R. Costanzo (LRC) was called upon to construct a new building addition, along with supporting utilities to sustain the facility’s new blast freezer operations. The team installed new foundations, insulted metal panels, roofing, and MEP utilities to support the freezer. The new addition required tie-in’s to the existing building on 3 sides. All work was successfully completed around on-going operations.
Challenges
- Building while in a fully functional facility
- This structure was constructed between three other buildings (U shaped) and, therefore, had limited laydown and access.
- Coordinating with the overseas vendor for the (owner-provided) blast freezer to construct simultaneously with the building erection
- COVID pandemic suspended construction for three months
Solutions
- Work was carefully and closely coordinated with owner to ensure no disruption
- The team from LRC took careful measures to coordinate material deliveries, while building to comply with FDA cleanliness standards.
- Utilized detailed planning and scheduling with the owner and vendor
- LRC took advantage of the pause to ensure that materials were procured in time for the restart
Construction Details
- Underpinned the existing foundations and shored the earth in order to construct a basement addition that connected to the existing building
- Complied with extensive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations such as sloped tops on horizontal surfaces, cleanable materials, and stainless steel materials for food grade applications. All welding, especially of stainless steel, needed to be ground smooth and polished to meet FDA cleanability requirements
- Coordinated with owner’s vendors to install the conveying and processing equipment which traversed through adjacent, operational buildings
