Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Corporate Office Update

It's been about 3 weeks since the last corporate office update and the inside of the building is coming together nicely. In the following pictures you'll see a lot of progress has been made on the interior walls and you may catch a glimpse of some utilities hanging around. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves this time around.
 
 Lobby area outside of the conference room.
 
Stock piling sand for the parking lot base.

Overnight Room - The Luxury Suite 

Upper Level Open Office Area 

Upper Level Open Office Area 

 Upper Level Open Office Area

Getting ready for the final pour in the lobby area.  



 Upper level looking toward the board room. The bathrooms are on the left.
 
Upper level private offices on the left. Bathrooms on the right.  

Ag-Tech Center 
 

Conference Room - Looking to the west


Monday, February 18, 2013

Stockton - Ready for Trusses

 
The floor was poured in the load out building last week rounding out the concrete work. The next step for the building is setting the trusses and pulling the fabric roof. To expedite the project we'll be working on plumbing and automation while the roof system is being constructed.
 
 In this photo, the crew is finishing up the concrete in the south side load bay.
 
From the top of a rail car, the front two-thirds of the site is highly visible. This is good to know since we'll have a camera in this general vicinity. The concrete down below is a truck load/unload containment pad.

The north load bay is prepped and ready to be poured. Under all the re-rod is a 6' wide x 4' deep tunnel which will be used for routing rubber hose around the site. The extra strength is needed in the floor to support the heavy truck loads.

The finish product. This week, the truck load out platform will be assembled followed by the office that sits on top of the platform. A crew from AK Equipment in Michigan is heading out to CA this week to set trusses and pull the roof fabric. They have a long drive but we anticipate the roof will be finished in a couple weeks.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Progress in Williams and Stockton

Williams
 
 The west end or exit side of the new 60x100 load out building.
 
 The rail office is looking  more like a shanty than an office at this time.
 
We now have an enclosed building. It took a while but the wind finally died down enough and gave the crew an opportunity to finish the fabric roof. If you look close you can see a daring individual on the peak.


Stockton
 

The south wall of the load out building was poured last week. As you can see, the weather is still working in our favor.

 The raceway walls leading from the building to the rail office were poured last week as well.

 Here you see the raceway after the interior forms have been stripped.

This is an exterior doorway that leads into the electrical room. You can see the panels on the right. The one under the tarp is the main service panel to accomodate the upgraded 1000 amp service.

Prep work is complete for the last of the concrete in the load out building. The 60x120 area you see here was poured this week. I don't have a picture of the finish product yet.

Stay tuned - we're getting close to the end.

Friday, February 8, 2013

TOUR DAY

CORPORATE OFFICE

Everyone at the St. Johns office was pleasantly surprised to see how far along the interior of the building has come. As the outside work has come to a hault, the interior has picked up steam. Unfortunately, not everyone has the good fortune to see the progress on a daily basis so Nick played tour guide once again explaining building functions and answering questions.


 The tour begins in the main entrance area. You can see here, the round steel posts have been painted giving them a metallic look.

MC Nick explains how to safely climb a ladder. In the back ground, the stone on the elevator shaft is nearly complete. A "greenish" colored glass will be inset in the void area in the center of the elevator shaft.  I'm sure there's a more sophisticated name other than "greenish", but I'm going with it.

The conference room - or room's. On the ceiling you can see the track the curtain wall will ride on to divide the room in thirds when necessary. Come on Dave, stay with the group.

This is the lower level open office area looking toward the cafeteria and kitchen. This is the hot spot to be in the building due to it's close proximity to the food. Check out that ductwork. It looks like something from the Star Trek Enterprise.

This is the upper level open office area looking at the adjacent wall to the exercise room. Hmmm....upper level office area borders exercise room, lower level office area borders cafeteria. You make the choice.

Looking north out of the upper level open office area. The elevator shaft and stairs are located straight ahead.

Upstairs restrooms are on the left. The right hand side looks down over the main entrance area.

Private offices upstairs. The front of these offices will be full glass so the only solid walls are the ones you see in the picture.

Looking out the window of one of the upstairs private offices. A green roof will eventually be installed over the top of this rubber roof system. This would make a perfect driving range.

 Upstairs looking at the outside of the board room on the north end of the building. Bathrooms are on the right.

The main entrance. This will be a full glass wall. The rubber roof is installed over the vestibule.

Upstairs looking toward the Ag-Tech center. You can see the majority of the framing is complete. Hopefully by the time we have our next tour those studs will be covered.

 These are the windows for the over night rooms. These hold the heat in the building much better than the visquine previously being used.

The west side of the building is taking on the look of a finished product. Earlier in the week, the Bancroft's Participated in the ceremonious stone laying, so if you come by for a visit, see if you can pick out their handy work.
 
 
And with that, the tour was over.
 
 
 
STOCKTON UPDATE
 
 
No tour in Stockton, but here's the latest development.
 
This is Vance the Electrician. He's very happy this morning observing the concrete pour. Don't be alarmed by the tire in the photo, they didn't flip the truck. Here in Michigan we aren't accustomed to seeing the rear dump cement trucks like in the western states. The wheels goes down when they're in transit to add another axle and spread the load of the truck on the road.

The electrical room floor.  

The remainder of the floor adjacent to the electrial room is now complete. You can see from the sunshine and lack of snow, they have much better working weather in the winter in Stockton than any of our other sites.  

That wraps up the concrete floors on the tank side of the building. The floor on the load out bay side is next. If we're still on schedule, this should happen next week.