Rich Products Distribution Center

This project is a new state-of-the-art production and distribution facility for the delicious portfolio of frozen cakes and pastries from Rich Products Corporation (RPC). The building was designed to include the latest in USDA food and health safety regulations.

The 192,000 square-foot building consolidated two production facilities relocated from New Jersey and California. Baking production, product packaging, frozen storage and employee training are all housed under a single roof. Rich's goal was to streamline their workflow to maximize production and distribution.

Construction began in 2013 on a 20-acre tract of land in the Lakeview Business Park, in Missouri City, Texas with production beginning 8 months after groundbreaking. The greatest challenge of this project was the accelerated construction schedule due to the fixed dates of the two plant closures. During the design process, RPC determined that a larger freezer warehouse was needed. Rather than increase the building footprint, the clear height of the freezer warehouse portion was raised to allow for taller racking and more storage capacity. The freezer warehouse was isolated from the main building, essentially creating a box within a box. This allowed the freezer's steel structure and floor slab to expand independently, due to the low temperatures from the main building.

Tilt-up construction was selected in order to reach the building Dry-in period quickly and begin work on the complex internal components of the building. Due to the large areas of under-floor slab freeze protection and the multitude of sloped floor drains, the traditional construction method of casting wall panels on the floor slab was not an option. Cadence McShane, utilized casting beds along the building pad's perimeter to begin formwork, concrete placement and panel erection. Vice President, Dan Delforge of Cadence McShane stated, "The use of over 90,000-square-feet of casting beds on this project was critical to getting the building structure and walls up within 3 months. Ten weeks after the project began, the tilt-wall panels were already being set in place even as the last of the floor slab placement was continuing." Once Dry-in was reached, a small army of subcontractors began the interior construction of the insulated wall panels and installation of complex network of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems.