Precast Solutions - November/December 2008 - (Page 4) NATURAL SELECTION PRECAST INDUSTRY SUPPLIER INTEGRATES . PRECAST INTO ITS NEW FACILITY PROJECT PROFILE Project name: A.L. Patterson corporate office and warehouse Owner: A.L. Patterson, Fairless Hills, Pa. Architect/Engineer: Elias Organization, Bensalem, Pa. Contractor/Installer: Keystone Companies, Doylestown, Pa. Precasters: Oldcastle Building Systems, Morrisville, Pa.; Garden State Precast, Farmingdale, N.J.; Oldcastle Cayuga Pipe, Croydon, Pa.; Reading Precast, Leesport, Pa.; Andalusia Concrete Products, Bensalem, Pa. BY BRIDGET McCREA PHOTOS COURTESY OF A. L. PATTERSON remember and honor those who have passed on, and who helped build the distributor’s business. To reach those goals, the company purchased about seven acres of land on which it would build a 31,500square-foot facility, with the ability to add on another 15,000 square feet in the future. The building included 6,000 square feet of office space on the ground floor with room to add a second floor on top should the extra space become necessary. their distribution firm’s growing business, there was little doubt in Barry Fleck’s mind that precast concrete would play a starring role in the process. “We have built our business by serving the precast industry for more than 35 years,” says Fleck, president of the Fairless Hills, Pa.-based firm, which supplies precast manufacturers with the latest technology and solutions needed to get their projects done. “We wanted to showcase the products we sell by casting them into precast from the industry we serve.” Having outgrown the facility it had occupied for more than 20 years, A.L. Patterson started its expansion project with a clean slate in September 2007. “We established four goals that we wanted to accomplish with our new facility,” recalls Fleck. Those four goals were: to build an office that employees would be proud to work in by providing them with a pleasing, comfortable and productive environment; design a warehouse that would allow the firm to efficiently handle materials with consideration for future expansion; build with sustainability in mind to manage for the long-term; and landscape the property with trees to W hen the team at A.L. Patterson decided it was time to build a new corporate office and warehouse to accommodate KEY ELEMENTS When it came time to design its new building, A.L. Patterson combined sustainability with affordability, beginning with exterior precast insulated Altus™ walls from Oldcastle Building Systems, whose plant is located a mile from the new facility. Bob Adams, vice president of business development for Oldcastle Precast Building Systems in Morrisville, Pa., says his firm has a long-standing relationship with A.L. Patterson. The precaster manufactured panels with 3-1/2 inches of insulation that were carbon-cast manufactured using sea grid as the shear connector. “This replaced conventional shear reinforcement with a noncorrosive, high-strength carbon fiber grid,” says Adams, who adds that the panels also featured a high R 4 PRECAST SOLUTIONS | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.