Industrial - Manufacturing
Transportation Services Calera Rail Yard
Calera, Alabama
Doster Construction Company was selected as the design-build contractor for Transportation Services Calera Rail Yard project. This 50,000 square foot project included extensive site improvements and renovation of an existing facility. In addition, the project team incorporated nearly six miles of new rail lines along with a supporting maintenance and office building.
This job encountered many unique obstacles, which included unsuitable soil, protected wetlands, and the facility's prior use. This project started in February 2008 with extensive sitework and a ten-month completion schedule. The site formerly housed a manufacturing plant for rail cars and had been closed for about five years. Due to the manufacturing process of the previous users, the site was littered with debris and trash. Also, a large amount of organic material was buried beneath sand piles which caused the soil to be unstable in many areas. Borings and test pits revealed that the team would encounter some of this organic material and debris, but the extent to which it existed could not be fully known until we began the excavation process.
This new facility dramatically increased production time for the owner. In addition, the owner authorized Doster to proceed with three main areas of additional work on-site to include renovation of the remainder of the office building, which doubled the usable office space to about 7,000 square feet; a new 7,200 square foot building on-site that houses operations for disassembling train axles and wheels; and renovation to an existing 11,200 square foot building, including offices and restrooms, that will house wheel mounting operations.
The project finished one month ahead of schedule. The Transportation Services Rail Yard brought nearly 50 jobs to the Calera Community.
This project was the recipient of an Associated Builders and Contractors Alabama Chapter Merit Award and the Associated General Contractors Build Alabama Award in 2008.
