After operating for 100 years in Birmingham, Ala., Red Diamond, Inc., moved its headquarters to a new campus about 20 miles away in Moody, Ala. The multimillion dollar, 65-acre corporate campus opened a few years ago to support the more than 6 million servings of Red Diamond coffee and tea that the company says are consumed on a daily basis.
The 2009 campus was the first complete facility to be designed by Italy’s Scolari Engineering (known for its coffee bean roasters) and is 30 percent more energy efficient than the old one. The updated facility includes a rainwater collection system used for irrigation.
Rick Passey, GM of Kirkpatrick Concrete's Central Division, said the project was approached in phases that included a warehouse, an office facility, and a coffee grinding/storing plant.
Unique Project
The project was unique for Kirkpatrick in that the design specified steel fiber for the wall and flooring slabs (versus the typical rebar and welded wire fabric). “There’s a lot of forklift traffic going across the floors in that facility,” said Passey. “To support that activity, steel fiber tends to hold concrete together, level, and uniform better than any other material.”
For the warehouse portion of the project, Kirkpatrick used tilt-panel construction and in the offices, the company used elevated metal pans. Passey said the project was fairly straightforward and conveniently located one mile from Kirkpatrick’s Moody, AL operation. “There were the usual challenges – like difficulties cutting through the slabs containing the steel fiber – but we resolved those issues quickly,” said Passey. “Other than that, it was a headache-free job with very good results.”
Red Diamond
The name “Red Diamond” first appeared over 100-years go as the label for coffees and teas packaged by the Donovan Provision Company. Red Diamond, founded in 1906, is one of the three oldest coffee and teas companies in the United States.
