Project of the Month: The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts - C.E. Floyd Company
C.E. Floyd Company is completing work on the new 63,000 sf headquarters for The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. The Food Bank is relocating from Hatfield to Chicopee, where it will have easier access to major highways and more than twice the amount of space. Over the last three years, The Food Bank estimates it has turned down over one million pounds of food due to a lack of storage capacity.
The new headquarters will allow The Food Bank to provide more healthy food across the four counties it serves, provide more services to the people it assists, and hire more people to help those facing food insecurity. The warehouse area was designed to move food in and out more efficiently with increased loading docks, freezer, refrigerator and dry goods space. Along with a doubling of the office space, the new building will include a community room and demonstration kitchen where people can learn how to make healthy meals with typical food distributions.
The Food Bank headquarters will be a net zero building. It has stellar insulation values with high-efficiency windows and doors, electric heat pumps, and a solar array on the roof to generate all its power needs. The parking areas will have electric charging stations for employees, visitors, and The Food Bank’s new fleet of electric vans used to transport emergency food to area food pantries and meal sites.
C.E. Floyd first became involved in this project shortly after The Food Bank purchased the land in December of 2020 and only had some basic floor plan renderings. C.E. Floyd helped drive the design schedule in order to submit documents and budgets in time for the new market tax credit investment deadlines.
The building was originally designed using steel bar joists. However, during the preconstruction phase, steel bar joists were hard to come by as large companies like Amazon were buying them out across the country. Lead times were 11+ months. This structure needed a lot of bar joists, so the team addressed the potential issue at the beginning of the design process and changed the structural design to regular steel beams and columns.
Despite schedule setbacks due to supply chain disruptions for the procurement of the generator, automatic transfer switch (ATS), switchgear, and loading dock controls, The Food Bank is still on track to move into its new building in September. The project team including The Dennis Group (architect) and Scalora Consulting Group (OPM) worked hand in hand to mitigate costs, delays, and supply chain disruptions, ultimately bringing this project in on schedule and under budget.
Along with helping The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts better fulfill its mission, C.E. Floyd is also making a greater impact in the community. They made purchasing decisions to drive social value. 18% of the trade partners hired are either minority or women-owned businesses, while 59% are local companies. C.E. Floyd also raised $9,000 in 2022 by participating in The Food Bank’s Will Bike 4 Food cycling fundraiser and hope to top that amount at this year’s event.
