Northfield Logistics Hub

A 520,000 sq ft cross-dock hub with 96 dock doors, delivered in 11 months from ground-break to first truck for a tenant with a fixed peak-season go-live.

The challenge

The tenant’s go-live was tied to its peak season, so the date was fixed before the design was complete. The 40-acre site had poor soils across most of its footprint.

A building this size usually takes longer than eleven months. Every week lost on the ground would have come straight out of the tenant’s fit-out time.

Our approach

Pre-construction started early with Arca Industrial and the tenant. We split the site into four zones so ground improvement, slab, walls and paving could move across it in parallel instead of in sequence.

• Tilt-up wall panels cast on the slab in parallel with steel erection.

• Ground improvement and paving sequenced in four zones across the 40-acre site.

• Dock levelers and doors procured during pre-construction to remove the longest lead time.

Eleven months only works if nothing waits for anything else. We planned the site as four jobs running side by side.

Cranes on the steel frame at dusk, with zones two and three running in parallel.

The outcome

The first truck docked eleven months after ground-break, three weeks before the tenant’s peak season. All 96 doors were commissioned and tested before handover.

The project closed under budget, and Northfield has since appointed us for its second hub in the region.