What we build · Cross-Dock & Truck Terminal
A Long Thin Building and a Lot of Pavement
Freight in one side and out the other, with almost no storage. The building is narrow, the door count is high, and the yard is most of the project.
The geotechnical report, the intended clear height and the likely tenant profile. Those three tell us more than a full set of drawings.
The slab
The one element a tenant judges on, and cannot fix
Self-perform
Dewatering and deep foundations in house
Commodity
Fire protection designed to what is actually stored
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
The pavement is the expensive part
A cross-dock building is comparatively simple. The truck yard around it carries continuous heavy axle loading, needs turning room for tractor-trailers at every door, and represents an enormous area of pavement. Under-designing it is the classic cross-dock mistake and it shows up as rutting within a couple of years.
What decides it
- Door count, which drives building length.
- Yard depth for trailer manoeuvring at every door.
- Pavement design for continuous heavy axle loading.
- Trailer parking, separate from the manoeuvring area.
- Stormwater, over a very large impervious area.
How we handle it
- 01Design pavement to the actual loading, not to a commercial standard.
- 02Provide yard depth that works for the vehicles used.
- 03Separate manoeuvring from trailer storage.
- 04Coordinate stormwater over the whole paved area properly.
- 05Build dock equipment and levellers to a serviceable standard.
Design the pavement to actual axle loading with a proper subgrade assessment. Under-designed truck yards rut within a couple of years, and repaving a working terminal costs several times what building it correctly would have.
Said plainly
Where we stop
Florida stormwater retention over an area this size takes real land. If the site cannot accommodate both the yard and the retention, the door count comes down — and we will say so at the test-fit stage.
FAQ
Common questions
- What is the biggest cost?
- Usually the yard pavement, not the building.
- How deep does the yard need to be?
- Enough for tractor-trailer manoeuvring at every door. Test it against the actual vehicles.
- Why do truck yards fail?
- Under-designed pavement and subgrade. It ruts within a couple of years.
- Does stormwater constrain the door count?
- On a tight site, yes. Retention over that paved area takes real land.
What decides cost
The Slab
The floor is the element tenants judge a warehouse by, and it is produced in a single continuous operation that cannot be repeated.
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Fire Protection
The sprinkler system is determined by what is stored and how high it is stacked, which is information a speculative developer does not have.
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Clear Height
Clear height has risen steadily and it is not free. Each additional foot costs across several systems and only earns it back if the market racks that high.
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Docks & Truck Court
Door count, court depth and pavement design are set by the vehicles that will use them, and getting the depth wrong is not fixable.
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Ground Conditions
Industrial buildings cover an enormous footprint, which means whatever is wrong with the ground is wrong across all of it.
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More what we build
Distribution Warehouse
The standard big-box warehouse. Four variables decide almost the entire budget, and they interact with each other.
Read more →
Light Manufacturing
A building shaped by what happens inside it. Power, compressed air, process drainage and ventilation are the project; the shell is comparatively simple.
Read more →
Cold Storage
The most technically demanding industrial building, and the one where an ordinary warehouse approach fails outright.
Read more →
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.