General Motors Flint Paint Shop

Owner:
General Motors
Submarket:
Location:
Flint, Michigan
Size:
1.3 million square feet
Services:
Design-Build
Date Completed:
February 2015

An investment of $600 million by General Motors in its Flint Assembly complex led to plant upgrades and a new paint shop.

When work began in 2014, it marked the start of the largest project in the Flint area in more than five years.

Challenges

Walbridge was contracted by Gallagher-Kaiser Corporation to design-build the new 1.3 million-square-foot paint shop. Mother nature ended up playing a major part in the project. From May 2014 through the end of summer, roughly 36 percent of scheduled working days were lost due to rain, water-pumping and associated cleanup.

Approach

Several factors played a key role in making sure progress was maintained at the project despite the foul weather:

Structural steel was set on the project in December 2014, while roofing was completed in February 2015.

As a self-performed service, Walbridge Concrete poured more than 1.3 million square feet of concrete, using specifications that include the freeze-resistant concrete and lightweight concrete and the use of additives such as steel fibers, liquid hardeners, shake hardeners and TUF Strand. The Michigan Concrete Association gave the project an Award of Excellence in the Commercial Flatwork category.

At its peak, three cranes completed steel erection – allowing workers to set penthouse air handling units and ovens in the building during structural steel placement.

The facility is expected to reduce the amount of sludge taken to landfills by 90 percent and will use 20 percent less gas and 40 percent less electricity. The paint shop is located next to GM’s Flint Assembly plant, which produces Heavy-Duty Chevrolet and GMC Sierra Crew and Regular Cab trucks. It is capable of producing Light-Duty Chevrolet Silverado Crew and Regular Cab Trucks.

We’ve Lived It

Decades’ worth of experience in paint shops helps us understand the most-critical needs of our clients. We install giant ovens while steel is being erected and air houses before a facility is finished. These steps cut time off a client’s testing and commissioning schedule. No one has to draw this up for us. We’ve lived it.

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