Walking the talk

For instance, the co-op’s original intention to use all the existing buildings on the site had to be spiked: the two secondary buildings could not be brought up to seismic standards, and had to be demolished. At the same time, the main structure had to be completely gutted in order to be usable. This produced tonnes of scrap metal and concrete, which created an interesting recycling opportunity.

“The bulk of the materials—the concrete floors, the tilt-up walls, the roof trusses—were utilized on-site for the expansion and the refurbishing of the existing building,” Fitterer explains. “We took the trusses out of the demolished buildings and reinforced the roof structure of the existing building. We chipped up the concrete for road base fill and base for the concrete floor in the high-bay.”

This recycling brought about a bonus: it saved MEC the significant cost of trucking away tonnes of materials to a landfill or scrap yard.

Construction began in January 2007 and took less than a year. By the second week of December—a full month ahead of schedule—the co-op was moving in, a phased-in process that involved transporting more than 600 trailerloads of merchandise from Richmond to Surrey.

Inside the operation
The new DC provides 190,000sqf of storage, 40,000 of which is mezzanine.

The space holds several different zones designed to handle the new inventory demands seamlessly. The existing 80,000sqf building—gutted and completely refurbished—is now the receiving area. Twenty-two dock doors line the walls, some dual-purpose, others dedicated solely to either shipping or receiving. The only racking in this area is used to store large items like canoes or kayaks.

Attached to the old structure is a 80,000sqf high-bay area with 36-ft clear ceilings. Much of this is rigged with 34-ft racking.

“We went high-bay to utilize the footprint,” Fitterer says. “It’s a lot cheaper going up than it is spreading out. Land costs are pretty expensive here in the Lower Mainland.”

Wire-guided swing-reach forklifts and order-picker trucks—part of a 32-unit electric fleet—run in the aisles of the high-bay racking. A new battery exchanger and charger keeps the trucks powered, complete with a pressurized watering system to prevent employee exposure to sulphuric acid.

Beside the high-bay section are two horizontal carousel pods. One of the pods is a used unit purchased specially for the new DC. The other came from the main Richmond facility, and was dismantled, transported and re-erected at its new home over a two-day period. The carousels each have 240 carriers, giving the DC 480 carriers to work with.