Principle Construction Corp. has completed its construction supervision services for the construction and improvements on three buildings in Joliet, Illinois.
The 13-acre intermodal facility, located at 1700 Center Point Way, is operated by Saturn Agricultural Incorporated. Principle acted as Saturn’s design and construction advisor, overseeing the leasehold improvements provided by CenterPoint Properties and Harbour Contractors as well as the building and equipment installation by Agrilogistics.
The site is home to three structures—a 1,500-square-foot operations building, a 3,150-square-foot load-out building, and an 8,780-square-foot receiving and storage building, which accommodates the flow of incoming hopper trucks hauling dried distiller’s grain and soy beans.
Additionally, Principle oversaw the design and construction of the system that will allow trucks to drive onto the site, weigh their load on a certified truck scale, and then unload their cargo into a 20-foot-deep pit inside the receiving building. The product is then conveyed into the load out building or to the storage building. After the product is redistributed into containers, it is weighed one more time on the outbound truck scales.
An elaborate network of below grade receiving bins, horizontal conveyors, vertical conveyors, spiral ducts, gate valves, dust control systems and explosion control equipment was installed to speed the process of unloading the inbound trailers and speed the delivery of product to either the storage building or one of the two empty storage containers in the Load Out Building. Product is weighed at various intervals during the process until it is finally loaded into the storage containers via the use of articulating conveyors.
The 20-foot pit was one of the unique challenges on this project. The pit had to accommodate a significant amount of robust equipment that would allow two trucks to unload their product simultaneously and in a matter of seconds, In addition to the equipment, the pit had to remain “bone dry”. A daunting task considering the detention pond was immediately adjacent with a water level more than 10′ above the bottom of the pit. Consequently, enhanced drain tile, ejection pump and water proofing systems were constructed so that all of the ground water remained outside of the pit.
