Client: Ahrens Engineering Pty Ltd
Project: Feed Mill for Harvey Farms
Location: Cnr Totara Street and Astrolabe Street Mt Maunganui NZ
Approx Cost: $15.0m
Harvey Farms owned an old mill in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand, which was operating way over its designed capacity and way under the required capacity.
The company had decided to make an impact in New Zealand and as part of their overall strategy, the existing mill had to be upgraded. We had to work around the existing mill so it could be kept operational including incoming and outgoing transport vehicles. The building work had to be staged, meaning the warehouse and office building had to be built first to provide accommodation for the office staff.
There was stipulation by the client that the warehouse could not have any columns, requiring the office to be suspended from the roof.
The structural design was quite interesting with such high loads to the bins. Their height created extremely large laods due to New Zealand’s high earthquake risk. Similarly we had to meet all the environmental issues that a building of the type and size dictates.
The mill itself is a building of over 29-metres in height with six intermediate floor levels and a maze of plant interwoven through the steel structure. The mill is internally and externally clad to maintain the highest level of cleaniliness possible. Each floor level is flashed into the internal cladding to aid this. A very large and complex engineering project.