Fuyao Glass America Industrial Redevelopment
China's largest auto glass manufacturer purchased 1.4 million square feet of the former General Motors Moraine Assembly Plant, idle for six years, to create the world's largest automotive windshield and window manufacturing facility.
Sector
Automotive Glass Manufacturing
Area
1.4M SF (500,000 SF expansion)
Completion
2016
Type
Manufacturing Plant Redevelopment
Location
Moraine, Ohio, United States
Before the purchase, Woolpert studied the site and buildings and set the scope and budget to return the facility to working order. Woolpert then provided architecture, engineering, survey, and design consulting to expand the building by 500,000 square feet, including partial demolition, reconfiguration of the plant to delineate facilities, and over 30,000 square feet of new office space for support functions.
Woolpert's electrical engineers adapted the Chinese-designed distribution system to US codes, saving costly construction errors, code violations, and injuries. The 90 MW service includes three 30 MVA outdoor substations feeding 12.47 kV switchgear and 22 new double-ended substations that power the glass furnace and molding equipment. A multidisciplinary consulting team, working with a translator and incorporating Feng Shui principles into the architecture, helped Fuyao navigate US regulatory agencies. Later work included the 8,700 square foot interactive showroom, warehouse additions, roadway design, and a mile-long sanitary sewer installed by directional bore.
