Bartels Packing Plant Expansion near Eugene, Oregon

Location: Eugene, Oregon
Client/Owner: Bartels Packing
Partners: Rodd Hansen Architect
Year: 2013–2014
Size/scale: Two additions to the existing plant, 92 by 120 feet and 60 by 50 feet
JBE services: Site survey of the existing plant, structural design and detailing of the gravity and lateral systems, and structural drawings for the architect’s permit set
Sector: Industrial

Bartels Packing plant near Eugene, Oregon, at dusk during a site survey

The challenge

Bartels Packing planned to expand its processing plant west of Eugene with two additions, the larger one about 11,000 square feet. The plant would keep running the whole time.

Working in a food plant sets the rules. Walls and floors have to be washed down daily, so the structure needed hard, cleanable surfaces. Overhead rails carry product through the building, so the roof framing has to carry more than a roof. And every new wall and footing had to meet an older building that had been added to many times.

Project photos

What we did

We had worked at the plant before, on an earlier processing addition, so we started with drawings and site knowledge already in hand. In March 2014 we walked the whole facility with the architect and the owner and photographed the existing structure, inside and out, where the additions would connect.

We designed the primary structure for both additions: concrete perimeter wall panels set on a concrete pedestal, with a steel-framed roof, and the lateral system to resist wind and earthquake loads. We issued preliminary sets to the design team through the winter of 2013 and 2014, coordinated them at team meetings with the architect, and delivered structural drawings for the permit set in March 2014.

The result

The owner and architect got a structural design that fit the way the plant works: washable concrete at the floor line, steel overhead, and connections to the existing building worked out ahead of time.