Pittsburg, Kansas leaders made a decision to aggressively bring new growth to their community. The City officials wanted to encourage growth in the residential, commercial and industrial segments of the community and made use of a sales tax to help fund these incentives.

When Rollsource, a unit of Georgia Pacific, and one of the world’s largest paper companies, came to the City and asked if a warehouse for their paper products distribution could be constructed in three months, the City said “of course.” Professional Engineering Consultants, P.A. and the City staff decided that a form of design-build called a “construction manager at risk” type of procurement should be utilized. With this type of procurement, the first step is to hire a construction manager who is under contract to the engineer and develop, in concert with the engineer, a guaranteed maximum price.

Upon acceptance of the price by the engineer and the City, the contractor is required to construct the project at or below the guaranteed maximum price. The contractor and the engineer divide the project into major components such as concrete and foundations, electrical, mechanical, etc. and bid these major components. The construction manager is required to accept the bid price or be less than the bid if the construction manager wants to self-perform the work.

Rollsource needed a 40,000-square-foot warehouse with at least 20-foot sidewalls. They wanted to consolidate their distribution system network and Pittsburg was the ideal place. Rollsource required the transfer of equipment from their California facility to Pittsburg within three months. A meeting was held with Rollsource and work began immediately. Crossland Construction of Columbus, Kansas was the selected construction manager.

In the early development of Pittsburg, significant amounts of shallow mined coal was taken from beneath the city. Foundation design for projects in these areas is critical. During construction of the warehouse, several soft areas were discovered, requiring immediate decisions to be made regarding changes. PEC and the contractor made these decisions in the field, and construction proceeded on schedule.

The facility was constructed on time and under budget. Rollsource was pleased with the facility and the cooperation of the City of Pittsburg.

PEC provided all the mechanical, electrical, structural and civil engineering and inspection services for the facility.

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