The Inside Story

White Construction Bags Whole Foods' New Store Build-Out

by Rob Patterson

Whole Foods Market wanted to make a splash in its hometown of Austin with the debut in early March of its new 85,000-sq.-ft. showcase grocery store.

The company had a tight deadline for preparing a grand opening while transferring its corporate headquarters from across the street into four floors of the 200,000-sq.-ft. tower above the store. The Austin office of Hensel Phelps Construction Co., headquartered in Greeley, Colo., served as the general contractor of the $38 million building completed earlier this year.

"The most intense part was the compressed schedule - a lot of work in a short period," said John Straub, project manager of Austin-based White Construction Co. for the build-out of the store interior. Work began in September and had to be finished in six months.

"I couldn't tell you how many hundreds of overtime man-hours are in the job," Straub added. "There hasn't been a Saturday or Sunday from early on that has not been worked."

White Construction finished out the floors, walls and ceilings and oversaw the mechanical, electrical and plumbing work in the space. The approximate contract value for the company's portion of the job was $10 million. Whole Foods installed the shelving and checkout counters as well as all of the equipment for groceries and its multifaceted prepared foods.

An otherwise challenging task of pouring concrete floor provided an aesthetic benefit. "The trucks couldn't get close to the building, so the concrete had to be pumped in," Straub said. "There were concerns about the mix drying out and clogging the pumps before it got onto the slab. So our concrete sub and its supplier came up with a different admix that included pea gravel. One of the advantages of that is that the owner decided to grind the slab down, which gives a terrazzo effect."

Some electrical, gas and plumbing conduits were installed in the floor slab but most utilities run overhead. "There's an incredible amount of MEP coordination that has to take place in a grocery store like this," Straub said. "In some places there are anywhere from eight to 10 separate layers of MEP, including electrical conduit, gas and refrigeration piping and ductwork."

The store has 225 refrigeration systems (versus 60 to 80 in most Whole Foods stores) that include 14 coolers and six walk-in freezers. It also features a full kitchen, bakery and pastry kitchen, fish fryer, wood-fired pizza oven and two in-house smokers. "Islands" offering sushi, seafood, salads, roasted nuts and other foods are stationed throughout, along with coffee and juice bars and a walk-in beer cooler.

To ensure MEP installation went smoothly, Whole Foods employed two key subcontractors. "We hired Dynamic Systems and Schmidt Electrical early and negotiated a cost plus a fee so they could get plans early and learn the job two months prior to starting," said Aaron Webb, senior project manager for Whole Foods. "We had Dynamic create a CAD drawing that color coded all of the different MEPs so we could see where all the conflicts might arise."

Dynamic Systems in based in Austin, as is Schmidt Electrical.

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The job also required White to be flexible and responsive. "Whole Foods culture stresses involvement for its employees, so there were quite a few changes as we went along," Straub said. "They made a decision to add a view wall to the kitchen on a Friday morning. That wall already had all the plumbing and drywall complete on both sides. On Friday evening we began to demo that wall out and on Tuesday morning it was complete."

The store is seeking the silver level of LEED certification for commercial interiors as well as Green Building status with the City of Austin. Helping it qualify for both is its energy system.

"All the refrigeration is on Austin Energy's chilled water system," Webb said. "We send it back to them hotter than they would normally get it, so they don't have to heat, which creates an annual rebate back to us to the tune of about $100,000. And we use reclaim on the heat from the refrigeration system to heat the store."

The store also purchases wind power from Austin Energy.

The materials used on the store interior also help it qualify for the LEED rating: recycled content in the drywall; rapidly renewable Brazilian liptus wood; local stone and aggregate in the cement; the use of paints, adhesives and materials free of volatile organic content; and recycling at least 50 percent of the construction waste.

The build-out of the four office levels above the store began at the end of June 2004 and was finished by the beginning of 2005. "Like most interior finishes, it was on a fast track, but it went pretty much without any hitches," said Pat Ferguson, White's project manager for the office space.

White installed the HVAC ducts and electrical conduits and permanent interior walls. It also did the painting and sound masking on the interior.

CDM/Project Managers of Watsonville, Calif., which acted as project managers for Whole Foods on the shell construction and the office interior, installed the modular system of demountable walls and office cubicles.

White also installed the modular raised-flooring system that provides each office and cubicle with individual power and data ports and HVAC delivery vents. The system features 14-in. raised-steel pedestals topped by a stained concrete panel and, in most of the office areas, is covered with carpet.

"It's important on a job like this to find out where the demountable furniture is going to go," Ferguson said. White chalked out the locations on the unfinished floor and then laid the HVAC >> and electrical ducts before putting the raised-floor system in place. The company also installed window-wash air-conditioning ducts and vents on the perimeter as well as motorized and manual shades on the inside of the building's window wall.

Ferguson cites a high level of coordination among White, Hensel Phelps and the project managers for everything running smoothly. "It was a good concerted effort to get Whole Foods in there on time."