As Construction Managers for the new Restaurant Depot wholesale food service supply warehouse in Maspeth, New York, Aurora faced many challenges in creating this successful build.

The first obstacle we faced was integrating 53,000SF of a dry goods warehouse with just of 22,000SF of refrigerated sales area. Luckily, our experience with this requirement proved helpful as we tackled this seamlessly and added a seven bay refrigerated loading dock so the building could run more efficiently.

In addition, given the location on the east bank of an estuary of the East River called Newton Creek, we had to protect and utilize existing outfalls. As a tidally influenced water source, we needed a drainage strategy that would be flexible enough to manage the vagaries of the water levels, as well as service the needs of the building. This included:

• Sequenced installations from the creek side moving inwards towards the street
• Careful coordination of all drainage structures to ensure that the invert elevations were installed as designed
• Sediment control measures modified and expanded as the storm drainage system was installed and incrementally brought “on-line”

And lastly, the building is a steel framed structure with a bar joist and metal deck roof on a pile supported concrete foundation, but we wanted a building where the owner could expand or contract the refrigerated portions of the building without disturbing its exterior skin. Our solution was to use 5 inch insulated panels on a girt system tied back to the structural steel.