Grand National MDC

Grand National MDC is a 770,640-square-foot, state-of-the-art distribution center for a national home building supply store. The building has a 34′ clear height, 98 standard 9×10 overhead doors, 409 car parking spaces, 335 trailer parking spaces and 51 box truck parking spaces located just north of Beltway 8 in Houston. The goal of this facility for the end-user is to create the fastest, most efficient delivery in home improvement, eventually reaching 90% of their customers with same-day/next-day delivery. Grand National MDC is the largest of six buildings on the 100-acre Grand National Business Park. Arch-Con built all six buildings simultaneously for Hines in less than 12 months. This build-to-suit building needed to be dried in as quickly as possible in order to start the tenant build-out areas and secure the building early for owner-provided equipment. Therefore, we needed to use construction techniques to speed the building to occupancy. Erecting the building’s steel diaphragm before the tilt-wall panels shaved a month off of the contractual completion date; it went from ground-breaking to dried-in in just over four months. By erecting the steel with a crane along the outside perimeter of the building, the team eliminated the need for a crane or heavy equipment on the concrete slab, preventing potential marking, or worse, cracking of the slab. The finishing of the slab has a Super Flat floor rating of FF65/FL50, far surpassing the 60/40 minimum required for a Super Flat classification. This would not have been possible if the crane or any other heavy erection equipment had been utilized on the slab via traditional erection methods. Additionally, while erecting the steel, the team simultaneously made concrete slab and panel pours to stack tasks and expedite the schedule. By the time panels were ready for erection, the following were completed: 75% of the structural steel, 75% of the roof decking, 50% of the TPO roofing system, 50% of the fire sprinkler overhead piping and 25% of the MEP overhead. The duration and length of time to install the slab allowed the crew to receive the steel early, so they could start erecting it in the middle of the building.