Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor a 500-year flood detained Green Valley Ag & Turf from opening its new John Deere dealership facility in Mt. Vernon, IA, on-time and on-budget in the fall of 2008, despite the worst weather on record in modern Iowa history.
Garling Construction project manager Troy Pins said the on-time opening was in spite of an early freeze, the coldest winter on record with wind chills down to 30 degrees below zero, rain throughout the spring, and a 500-year flood wiping out many of the subcontractors’ headquarters and damaging equipment.
“Kudos to Green Valley Ag & Turf and their representative Chris Mottinger. Our clients were great – there to help and coordinate with John Deere, which has very exacting standards. They were heavily involved,” said Pins.
Mottinger is a real estate developer and owners’ representative who worked closely with Garling, Green Valley Ag & Turf and John Deere. “This was to be a metal building from the beginning,” Mottinger said, noting that John Deere specifies a specific metal building manufacturer. He continued, “From experience we know that Ceco was at least an equal building.” Mottinger added that John Deere had a national builder and architect “pressing us to follow their specification, but we took the option of using our local team to get the building to withstand our climate,” he added. “We certainly kept their design but went with a known and reliable contractor, Garling. Also on the team were Brost Architects and Planners, DCL Consultants structural engineers and MMS consultants, who are civil engineers.
“It was important that we work with someone who knew local zoning and our climate. The exterior signage and canopy proved to be a sticking point,” Mottinger continued. “Dave Brost Sr. and Jr. worked with us to achieve the necessary design modifications, and I cannot say enough about Garling’s ability to adjust. They are a total class act!”
“It was a 12-month project,” Mottinger said, “and we finished on-time, on-budget and to the owners’ satisfaction.”
While the building is a single unit, “It is actually six buildings combined into one,” Pins said. “It was quite complex with different roof angles and ceiling heights, all built into one structure. We worked from five or six ‘starter plans’ submitted by John Deere, with our design team modifying those to our local needs, then obtaining John Deere approval.”
“We worked closely with Ceco Building Systems’ Midwest Region plant in Mount Pleasant. They are easy to work with and accommodated our needs,” he remarked.
Massive doors presented a challenge. One such door in the service area had to be 42-feet wide, which required a change in the structural system to accommodate it. In the wash bay, plans required two 32-foot wide doors.
The building is slightly more than 39,000 square feet and consists of a shop area for large farm equipment; a shop area for lawn and garden equipment; small parts storage and an area for retail sales of John Deere products.