AWG Revives Corporate Headquarters with Expansion

Dust from Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG) recent headquarters expansion has finally settled, but operations continue to surge. AWG, located in Kansas City, Kansas, is the nation’s second largest retailer-owned grocery cooperative. With the 26,854 sf addition, the building will now serve over 1,000 employees for AWG Corporate Office, the Kansas City Distribution Center, and Valu Merchandisers, a general merchandise and health care subsidiary.

Photo by: Mihalevich

GBA partnered with The Weitz Company to deliver this $5.5 million design-build project, in addition to working in conjunction with local, minority and women owned businesses. The Weitz-GBA team developed perspectives, schematic floor plans and prepared budgets that became part of the successful proposal selected by the owner. The team also carried responsibility for delivering several pricing options, different entrance design approaches and communication on how to coordinate the build with the daily operations on this busy industrial site.

The major design challenge for GBA was to duplicate a 20-year old addition with the original 1970 single-story office building. GBA used present day materials and building codes to create an attractive blend between the new and existing areas. Weitz was tasked with a construction challenge of building the three-story structure over occupied office building space and sharing tarmac with a 24/7 trucking and warehousing operation.

The new building skin was a combination of aluminum composite material panels, glass curtain wall, and EIFS. The building was modeled in BIM, from the bottom of the drilled pier foundations to the roof parapet.

So, the next time you visit your local retail store you just might be selecting from AWG’s assortment of grocery, fresh meat and produce, specialty foods, health care and general merchandise items that made it to market with the help of staff working on the recent office expansion by the Weitz-GBA team.