A 57-acre brownfield site was remediated to make way for Komatsu Mining’s 180,000-sq-ft office and experience center, a 430,000-sq-ft manufacturing facility and a 650-car parking structure. The project was designed and built to green building standards with goals of reducing energy consumption by 75% and water consumption by 80% from baseline. The project achieved a LEED V4 Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Because of the large size of some of the manufacturing equipment, the building was constructed around some machines that had to be installed in advance. The new facility houses 65 separate machine foundations.

To transport some of the larger equipment manufactured at the facility, an active rail line runs through the property. The electric rope shovels, hybrid shovels and blast hole drills that are manufactured in the facility are so large that they don’t leave in one piece. The largest shovel, capable of scooping more than 120 tons at a time, must leave the plant in 46 semi-trucks and 12 rail cars.

Photo courtesy MKE Drones

Among the project’s challenges, crews erected a 350-ft-long employee bridge over operating railroad tracks. The team had to coordinate shutdown of the rail line for one day to allow the four picks to take place. Union Pacific provided flaggers and safety personnel to coordinate and monitor safety. The longest and heaviest pick was the center span, which was 140 ft long and weighed 59.9 tons.

The Komatsu project carried diversity and inclusion goals of a 25% small business enterprise construction subcontracting requirement, an 18% requirement for professional services and Milwaukee resident preference program workforce requirements of 40%. The project surpassed those goals with 41% SBE contracting, 20% subcontracting for professional services and, with over 680,000 hours worked, over 44% RPP.

Approximately $70 million in direct contracts went to Milwaukee SBE certified firms.

The project, which broke ground on March 2020, was completed on budget and on schedule in June 2022.