Founded in 1930, in a small brick building and known as Beaconsfield Supply Store, Hy-Vee Inc. has evolved into a chain of supermarkets with some 280 locations in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin (and soon in Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky). Headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, Hy-Vee prides itself on its commitment to quality, convenience, healthy lifestyles and superior customer service, as reflected by the company’s slogan and operating philosophy, “A helpful smile in every aisle.”

As part of its dedication to operational excellence, Hy-Vee recently centralized its distribution activities into a new hub in Cummings, Iowa. Thanks to strong support it received from Baker Group, Ankeny, Iowa, Hy-Vee’s cutting-edge facility has positioned the supermarket giant for continued growth and success.

A great opportunity

Founded in 1963 by Bernie Baker Jr., “Baker Group is a full-­service mechanical, industrial and automation firm with a security and fire alarm division, a 120,000-square-foot office and prefab facility, more than 1,000 employees, and three locations in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Ankeny, Iowa; and Kansas City, Mo.,” said Leroy Clair, senior project manager and team lead. “Our main service territory is Iowa, but we’ve done work in 16 states.

“Hy-Vee is an employee-owned company and is the main brand of supermarket in our region,” Clair said. “They really care about their customers, offer great products and service and do a lot to support their communities through fundraisers, volunteer work and more. 

"Hy-Vee’s distribution center represented our first opportunity to do a big electrical project for them,” Clair said. "In spring 2022, they reached out to us requesting that we put together a ‘mechanical-­electrical-plumbing' package for them and enter an RFP process.”

Baker Group was officially awarded the project, which kicked off in September 2022. According to Clair, the project involved development of a 160-acre site in Cummings, Iowa, a Des Moines suburb, on which Hy-Vee was constructing a 650,000-square-foot warehouse with future expansion capability to 1.25 million square feet.

“Hy-Vee had acquired specialty products company Lomar in 1990 and wanted to centralize all of Lomar’s multiple locations and operations into the new facility,” he said.

“While Hy-Vee’s own construction division served as the GC on this project, we were brought in to do the electrical contracting work, and another part of our company did all of the sheet metal work,” Clair said. “We worked with the local utility company and their design team to determine placement of the utility transformers, and we worked with Pennsylvania-based engineering firm Webber/Smith Associates to ensure that the overall design fit the needs of the current building and its future growth. We then started work on other infrastructure, including installation of all of the primary distribution systems and redundant feeds throughout the building, and we integrated with the other trades on storm sewers, water mains and more.”

“We had anywhere from seven to 45 crew members on the job at any given time,” Clair said of their work at the state-of-the-art facility, which features a 35,000-square-foot electronic fulfillment center with a fully automatic stock and restock robot, an employee-picked fulfillment center and two four-story pick towers. 

“From pasta, dairy and produce to candy bars and cigarette lighters, these spaces house an automated process for picking products and distributing them to stores throughout Hy-Vee’s network,” he said.

Value-engineered services

Throughout the project, Baker Group oversaw the facility’s broad range of electrical needs—and more.

Among other activities, “we installed a 5-inch PVC concrete-­encased duct bank that was distributed from centralizers to medium-voltage switchgear to the utility transformers, and then we installed all of the utility transformers with their oil moats,” Clair said. 

The team installed secondary conduit into two main electrical rooms and two 2.5-megawatt generators to provide full backup to the entire facility, as well as to all the panel feeds from the electrical rooms and under the slab, while the facility’s footings were being constructed.

“We had to assess how those were being built to ensure that we had pathways,” Clair said, whose team was ultimately able to provide Hy-Vee with cost savings on their system of underground feeders.

“More specifically, we were able to decrease the quantity of feeds required, which saved on the cost of the material and the labor to install those feeds,” he said. “Due to voltage-drop concerns, we had to go from aluminum to copper electrical feeds, but we came up with a more economical approach to doing that, which was approved by Hy-Vee’s engineering team. Overall, we value-engineered the process and helped design a system that provided a better installation for the project, as copper remains a more reliable source of power than aluminum.”

Clair said that Baker Group also provided expertise regarding the facility’s lighting system.

“We helped decrease costs for the owner by redesigning the lighting with some different technology than originally specified,” Clair said. Installing LEDs and lighting controls by such brands as Lithonia, GE and NX, “we were able to increase the lumens, decrease the fixture count and extend the life of the fixtures by only running the lights at 85% of their lumen output. Every fixture has an occupancy sensor, and we grouped the fixtures in zones to provide the most effective lighting for the customer.”

“Hy-Vee added a two-bay truck wash to the facility, so we also provided the infrastructure to cover that and designed block heaters for all of the trucks,” Clair noted. “And based on the size of the building, we also added a 911 repeat system throughout the whole facility to ensure that all radios and communications work properly should first responders ever need to be called in. The facility’s needs grew as the project progressed, and we remained flexible and ready to address anything that was required.”

Hurdling over challenges

Among project hurdles, Clair said that constructing the design and structure together created some challenges for his team. 

“Hy-Vee looks for creativity and innovation, but we had to settle on a switchgear package before the designs were 100% complete because there was a year-long lead time on panels and switchboards and we had to get the order in right away to ensure that we had what we needed,” he said. “Our switchgear manufacturer, Schneider Electric [Andover, Mass.], was great about ensuring that we had the flexibility and panelboard space to add the circuitry we needed, and they also helped get the product to us in time.”

Clair said generator manufacturer Kohler Co., Kohler, Wis., was also extremely proactive when it came to helping Baker Group get its two generators and life safety transfer switches on schedule during the height of pandemic-era supply chain issues. 

“Because Hy-Vee is always very concerned for the safety of its employees, we ended up adding a 200-kilowatt hurricane/missile-rated generator to supply power to the facility’s tornado shelter and communication infrastructure,” he said.

While Baker Group team members struggled to work outside during the area’s very cold and snowy winter of 2022–23, “Hy-Vee did a good job of preparing the site,” Clair said of a challenge their client helped to address. “They brought in a foot of rock around the pad so that we could dig through it in case it got muddy and rainy, though we still worked many days in sub-zero temperatures.”

Clair said that organization, communication and teamwork were critical on a project of this scale and complexity.

“We conducted a big construction meeting weekly and sat down with all of our foremen daily to discuss that day’s activities and schedule as well as tasks for the six weeks ahead,” Clair said. 

“Whether they were overseeing the facility’s receiving, shipping and standard office areas; its warehouse space; its external-­mounted fire pump area; or another space, our team had to pull together to develop schedules that they’d abide by, and everyone committed to it. We took the time to understand the customer we were supporting, their needs and the deadlines they had to meet, and our crew members bought in because they took so much pride in the project,” he said. 

“If challenges arose for any team, everyone worked together to help them meet their dates by loaning them equipment like a lift or skid loader ... [and] we finished by our June 1, 2024, target date.”

“Everything turned out just as the owner wanted,” Clair said, who noted that final touches are still being added, including the installation of a large Hy-Vee sign that’s visible to motorists on Interstate 35 between Des Moines and Kansas City.

“To support the needs of the rural community of Cummings, there’s a Hy-Vee convenience store built on the campus, [and] there will be Level 3 EV charging there as well,” Clair said. “Overall, this is a very high-tech facility. The facility is being tweaked to support the needs of the 300 workers there as well as the others who will likely be hired as operations expand over time.”

Lessons learned 

As for lessons learned, “this project ran smoothly and we had great and open communication with the owner and design group; we all worked well as a team,” Clair confirmed. “The customer appreciated our design ideas, and we have a stronger relationship with them as a result of this project.”

Clair also recognized the outstanding work done by Adam Sperry, Baker Group’s general superintendent. 

“Adam spent a lot of time getting to know the project from an architectural, structural, mechanical, and plumbing standpoint so that he could design the optimal system, and he did a great job preplanning the project and then implementing that plan,” Clair said.

Looking ahead, “we hope to work with Hy-Vee as they grow and to continue to show our dedication to them as a client and to this project,” Clair said. “We loved the opportunity to provide cost-saving ideas to the customer and would love to do more design-assist projects in the future, as we have all of those capabilities in-house.”

Overall, Clair and his team take pride in the project and are grateful for the strong relationship they’ve forged with their client.

“We wish Hy-Vee great success in the future,” Clair concluded, “and we’re excited to watch them grow and take advantage of expansion opportunities in the future.”

Featured Image: stock.adobe.com / hakinmhan / hy-vee Inc.
Images: baker group