Case Study: Beard Equipment Company
Early in 2023, PSE Designs (PSE) was approached by Persons Construction Services (PSC) to join them in a design-build project for a new two-story office expansion for Beard Equipment (Beard) in Mobile, Alabama. Because of their continuing success, the client’s existing office and sales space was no longer adequate.
PSE put together a design team to explore the possible solutions for their needs. The owner, in conjunction with PSC, had already developed a conceptual floor plan and ideas for the exterior elevations and finishes. Upon review of the conceptual plans, the project team (owner, contractor, design professionals) had conversations to understand and prioritize the needs and desires for the new expanded space. One of the most important aspects of the building design was the owner’s desire for a large open focal point entrance that presented the atmosphere of a corporate office setting with a simple and clean design. Their statement was “We want it nice, but we do not need the Taj Mahal!” With that in mind, our architectural team provided a plan for review. After several iterations, we found a design that was elegant, yet simplistic, while providing a new entrance atrium with second-floor walkways looking into the lower entrance space.
The design required adding a new two-story building to the front of the existing single-story, pre-engineered metal building. Beyond the owner’s desired look of the two-story construction, it was also a necessity to meet the goals of the expansion given the limited area available for the new building. The new addition was only twenty-five feet wide, but 225 feet long. It was determined that a conventional metal stud framed building would provide the simplest approach from a constructability standpoint, while also being an economical solution. The second-floor framing was constructed using steel bar joists to support the elevated floor slab. The use of open-web joists allowed for space to run HVAC duct along with electrical wiring above the new suspended ceiling. Their space required modifying several existing offices as well as removing two existing offices to allow for expanded restroom space.
This new addition also required us to be creative with egress. Because the addition was so long, the travel distances became an issue. It was determined that the addition of an exterior steel stairway was the easiest way to provide the additional egress point. By limiting the travel distances, we were able to avoid having to sprinkle the building, thus reducing the owner’s cost.
The exterior finish was completed using new Nichiha panels from their concrete series. This provided a clean, modern finish, which complemented their existing brick veneer along the sides of the existing structure.
The new expanded building will be in what was originally approximately one-half of the existing parking lot. This required the project team once again to understand the priorities of the project. The site had to accommodate more parking for the increase in personnel and sales traffic while simultaneously maintaining equipment laydown/display space as well as meeting all code requirements. We established a design that shifted the parking lot westward that would not interfere with the existing equipment display area. Additionally, we added a small parking lot on the southside of the building to better facilitate the sales portion of the project. In all, with the new and reworked parking lots we were able to add an additional fifteen parking spaces. With the expanded building and parking lot a detention pond was needed to collect stormwater. The design team was able to use green space adjacent to the equipment display area as a location for this pond.
As stated earlier, we teamed with PSC to provide a design-build project. Their team of constructors and our design professionals were able to interact at all points during the design. The construction side of the team was able to provide insight as to costs almost immediately. This allowed the project to stay within the owner’s budget throughout the design process. This meant that at the end of design, there was no need to “value-engineer” things out of the scope to reduce costs. We were able to accomplish “value engineering” throughout the entire design phase of the project.
It was a true pleasure to team up once again with Persons Construction Services on this project. We believe that all members involved with this process worked diligently to bring the design portion of this project to a successful close.
For this project, we decided to do a three-part video series. The first part is complete and describes the design in more detail as well as some of the issues brought about by the project requirements. Please visit our web page to watch it. We will be creating a second video once construction is underway. The third and final video will be created once the project is complete, and the finished building can be seen.
PSE wishes to thank PSC and Beard for allowing us to be part of this exciting project. We look forward to a long and lasting relationship with Beard on any of their future projects. We are also appreciative of PSC thinking of us when they needed to create a design-build team. We have been involved with PSC on many projects and we look forward to continuing this relationship.