Gavilon Fertilizer Partners With Marcus Construction to Renovate Facility

By CropLife Staff|July 2, 2019

What They Needed

Gavilon Fertilizer in Port of Catoosa, OK, was at a crossroads. The roof and floor of its warehouse were still in good condition. However, the interior rodded bin walls and outer front wall were deteriorating. The portions of the walls that were deteriorating increased facility repair costs, product shrink, labor, and demurrage. It seemed a shame to demolish the whole facility and start new, yet the leaders at Gavilon knew something needed to be done to update their Port of Catoosa terminal. Operationally, Gavilon was concerned about building new and needing to temporarily close for business.

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While the major part of construction was the interior, the exterior of Gavilon’s renovated river terminal also got new siding.
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Prior to the remodel, Gavilon’s storage bins were rodded and showing signs of deterioration. Repair costs, product shrink, and cycle times were escalating.
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The new bins are designed to stack product full height without the need for braces, rods, or unwanted columns — making it an open and safe space. Gavilon’s renovation has reduced labor, demurrage, and repair costs while increasing efficiencies, storage, and speed.
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Gavilon floor plan.
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New glulams were installed between the concrete columns to support the existing roof structure before all the poles could be taken out.
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This alleyway view shows the new electrical conduit and LED lighting.

Gavilon brought in Marcus Construction. After exploring different options, both parties agreed on the value of the existing roof/floor and decided a renovation would be the most cost-effective solution.

What We Designed

By choosing a remodel instead of a rebuild, Gavilon wanted to continue unloading barges into its limited storage space and loading out products into trucks/railcars. With this in mind, safety was a priority, knowing both Marcus’ construction traffic and Gavilon’s fall fertilizer season traffic would be active inside the warehouse. The solution was a two-phase approach. This gave Gavilon and Marcus access to different ends of the building — allowing operations to continue alongside the remodel.

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Marcus Construction demolished the 12 existing bin walls while keeping the roof supports and overhead conveyor in operation. Marcus designed and constructed new free-standing bin walls to stack product full height without the need for braces, rods, or unwanted columns — making it an open and safe space that supports the roof and conveyor system. The new bin design added an additional 14,000 tons of storage, taking Gavilon’s storage capacity from 29,000 to 43,000 tons on the same footprint.

The decision to rebuild solved Gavilon’s problems — it was able to salvage valuable parts of its existing structure at significant cost savings along with being able to continue servicing its customers throughout construction.

In today’s complex and fast-paced crop production sector, the team at CROPLIFE keeps 21,000 agricultural retailers, distributors and their suppliers up to date on such decidedly 21st century issues as seed technology, biotechnology, precision agriculture, customer service and retention, and business management. See all author stories here.