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Warehouse at 8A: The Bug Goes Big
Volkswagen of America will nearly triple its space when
it moves next year to a new 928,000 square-foot warehouse at Station
Road and Route 130 near Exit 8A. Two superlatives describe it: it
will be the biggest single building to be constructed in this area,
and its walls will contain more glass than any similar warehouse.
Ed Klimek, of KSS Architects on Witherspoon Street, expects to see
his project completed by next summer, and September is the target
move-in date. Klimek also designed and project managed the
construction
of Volkswagen’s current warehouse on Commerce Drive at Exit 8A.
The new place will be two facilities in one, a master depot that takes
shipments from Germany to be distributed to centers throughout
America,
and a regional parts distribution center. It will replace the current
323,282 square foot regional facility, which was built for $50 million
by the Matrix Development Group in 1995. Set on 71 acres at Station
Road and Route 130, it will have four major entrances and 50,000
square
feet of office space, plus state-of-the-art “racking and
picking”
features and parking for 100 trailer trucks.
“Obviously logistics plays a major part in selecting the
location,”
says Volkswagen spokesperson Tony Fouladpour, noting the site’s
proximity
to the turnpike and airport, “and the northeast is our largest
market, where we have the most dealers. We are within 500 miles of
about 40 percent of our retail part markets and dealers.” Most
shipments arrive by truck in ocean freight containers and are
dispatched
by truck. Parts are supplied only to authorized dealers; parts are
sold only to authorized dealers.
Volkswagen is Europe’s largest manufacturer of passenger cars and
has its American headquarters in Michigan. In 1987 the company moved
its Pennsylvania assembly plant to near Mexico City, where it turns
out 425,000 cars a year — Jettas, New Beetles, and Cabrios. Its
Golf model comes from Brazil, and the Passat and EuroVan from Hanover,
Germany. Volkswagen USA also distributes Audi, Bentley, and
Rolls-Royce,
but not Lamborghini.
Smaller parts distribution centers are in California, Illinois, and
Texas, and one will soon open in Canada. “We want to be as
efficient
as possible,” he says, “and the growth has been dramatic.
It is a customer satisfaction issue for us; we are always looking
for more ways to expeditiously deliver parts.”
The site developer is Boston-based Cabot Industrial Properties LP,
a publicly traded real estate investment trust (NYSE: CTR). Architect
Klimek is working on the building with Allen Dresselhause of Trammell
Crow, Volkswagen’s in-house realty department. Paul Torosian and
Larry Maister of Trammell Crow represented the tenant in both the
lease transaction and dealing with the municipality. Drinker Biddle
& Shanley is the land use attorney, Schoor DePalma the civil
engineering
firm, and March Associates the general contractor.
For its purchase of the land from the Applegate family, Cabot was
represented by John Horan of Coldwell Banker Commerciial and Feist
& Feist Realty Corp., and Eric Bram & Co. represented the seller.
Cabot has a development partner, Auber Resources, and was represented
by Auber in affiliation with the Garibaldi Group.
Klimek grew up in New Jersey, where his father is a
chemical engineer near Old Bridge and his mother is a systems analyst
for an insurance firm. A graduate of the University of Detroit’s
five-year
architecture program, Class of 1986, he is also project manager for
Princeton Township’s new municipal complex. Maggie Greco works with
him on the warehouse design.
It is hard to imagine a building as big as 900,000 square feet.
Bristol-Myers
Squibb’s holdings in Hopewell, the former Mobil center, total 800,000
for the group of structures. The closest comparable space is actually
two warehouses, referred to as “the A and B buildings” on
Docks Corner Road; they were renovated by Matrix Development and
constitute
1.2 million square feet.
To work with such mammoth dimensions, Klimek says, requires broad
architectural strokes. He has designed four impressive entrances that
are supposed to counteract the effects of large walls and attract
attention from those who drive by. Because it is two facilities in
one, the corners indicate the various parts of the building. “To
relate to the scale, the corners needed to be prominent,” says
Klimek. “You can’t just put a door in the wall.”
His large rectangular “offsets,” or protrusions, extend from
the corner doors for up to 40 feet. These offsets — precast
concrete
like the rest of the building — have panels of colored concrete
and of glass.
Glass — lots and lots of it — is a significant component of
this building as for the smaller Volkswagen warehouse built by
Matrix. Most of the warehouses on 8A have few windows and depend on
artificial light. Yet drive by Volkswagen’s current facility, and
you can see right inside, as if it were a huge living room picture
window. “But people have to work there,” says Klimek. “We
try to let them see what is going on outside, and create articulation
(special spaces) in the building, so you just don’t have a big massive
building.”
It wasn’t an easy sell, he admits. “Some within VW saw the
importance
of bringing in natural light, and some were skeptical about the glass.
But it has a wonderful benefit. One day the power went out and they
could still see inside — and they loved it.”
Volkswagen of America Inc., 1 Commerce Drive,Cranbury08512. 609-860-8800; fax, 609-860-8804.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
