'With good preparation, you can funnel the process'

Flexible refrigeration/freezer space

Property manager Van Uden Logistics bought an existing cold store with adjacent offices, including a 4,000-square-meter vacant lot, out of bankruptcy several years ago. That existing property was leased to Lelieveld Transporten in 2018. A cold store with flexible refrigeration/freezer space has since been built on the vacant lot.

Property manager Van Uden Logistics bought an existing cold store with adjacent offices, including a 4,000-square-meter vacant lot, out of bankruptcy several years ago. That existing property was leased to Lelieveld Transporten in 2018. A cold store with flexible refrigeration/freezer space has since been built on the vacant lot.

Richard Zevenhoven, manager projects & asset management at Van Uden Logistic Site Solutions: "Lelieveld was experiencing considerable growth. Together with this transport company, we decided to build a cold store/freezer next to the premises. We discussed the wishes and requirements and arrived at a project description and specification. The idea was to create more refrigerated/freezer space so that customers could be served even better."

Vincent Lelieveld, owner of Lelieveld Transporten together with brother Maurice: "A total of 3,900 m2 was added. And it has become a special cold store: two of the large freezer cells can also be used as cold stores. The building has several compartments, which we can set to different temperatures, from -20°C to 14°C. We now have five additional cold rooms, two additional freezer cells, and part of the space is dedicated to loading and unloading."

Zoning

Because the construction involved deviating from the zoning plan, in terms of the shape of the building, the project had a somewhat longer preparation time. Says Zevenhoven, "According to the zoning plan, the roof had to have a certain shape, and we wanted to deviate from that, because it provided a lot of extra space. In addition, it made the building more marketable in case of possible other tenants. The municipality was revitalizing the existing industrial area and cooperates with such plan deviations, subject to certain caveats. In the end, the municipality approved this."

The building has since been completed. It did take some time before the freezing installation was set up. Lelieveld: "You can't bring the temperature down to -20°C all at once, because then the concrete floor can be damaged by shrinkage. We were able to bring the freezer cells down by a maximum of 2°C per day." He is pleased with the new building and its layout. "We now have a lot of flexibility in the smaller cells. In the existing building, the 2,050 m2 cold room was basically a box within the building, with one fixed temperature. In the newly built piece, we can provide flexibility throughout for our customers in the food industry."

Latest techniques

A separate installation using the latest technology was constructed for the refrigerated freezers. The freezer cells are cooled with CO2 and the existing ammonia refrigeration system has been expanded. Lelieveld: "Because we have created something entirely new here, we were able to make choices for the longer term. So we thought about that very carefully. Many companies still store refrigeration and freezer equipment separately. There are few companies that can offer that in one location. That also saves on transport movements. This allows us to offer and complete the entire logistics process. There are fewer links in the chain and therefore less chance of mistakes."

Construction delivery went smoothly. Zevenhoven: "With good preparation, you can funnel the whole process. After all: when you start, all the essential choices have already been made and things generally run smoothly. The only downside was that materials that were supposed to be delivered before the construction period came a little later. What worked very well was that we held construction team meetings with all parties involved every two weeks. This also allowed us to properly align all the components in the planning."

Construction Info

Client

Van Uden Logistics Site Investments

Tenant

Lelieveld Transports

Climate engineering consultant

RBK Group

Architect

Van Bronckhorst Architects Nijkerk

Main contractor

De Vries and Verburg

E and W installer

Jolectra Services BV

Climate Installer

Nijssen Refrigeration