Here Comes the Sun
http://newyork.construction.com/new_york_construction_projects/2015/0716-Here-Comes-the-Sun.asp
07/16/2015
By Peter Maloney
Buffalo is a city known for snow. It is not the first place one would think to build a solar panel factory. But the city will soon be the home
of the largest such manufacturing facility in the Western Hemisphere, according to SolarCity, the San Mateo, Calif.-based company that
is set to begin moving into the complex later this year.
Photo courtesy of Dylan Buyskes, Onion Studios
Tight deadlines remained in place even though the size of the project increased fivefold.
Set on an 88-acre former steelmaking site, the 1.2- million-sq-ft building is about one-third of a mile long, yet the entire project is being
built in 18 months. It was imbued with a sense of urgency from the start, pushed by the desire of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to make things
happen quickly. That pace is reflected in the fact that the original size of the building was increased fivefold, but the schedule remained the
same.
Ground was broken last September at the RiverBend site, located on a bend in the Buffalo River. To keep pace with the aggressive
construction schedule, LPCiminelli, the Buffalo-based general contractor overseeing work, had to clear 50,000 tons of snow from the
site over the winter to stay on schedule.
It wasn’t the first time LPCiminelli acted preemptively to ensure the project remained on schedule. During the summer of 2014, between
the firm’s selection as project developer and completion of SolarCity’s final design, LPCiminelli used the hiatus to prepare the site.
Frank L. Ciminelli II, the company’s senior executive vice president who is overseeing work, was very familiar with the site. Several
members of his family, like so many others in Buffalo, had worked there when it housed a Republic Steel factory that was one of the
largest in the country.
As it happened, the foundation contractor’s father had old drawings of the steel factory plans. They turned out to be an invaluable guide
for getting a timely start on the project and a good map for the industrial archaeology that was to come.
The brownfield site, one of the largest in New York state, was remediated long before the SolarCity facility was even on the drawing
board. Republic Steel closed and demolished the plant in 1984. The site was sold to Steelfields Ltd., which did the remediation work
and in 2008 sold it to the city of Buffalo for $4.6 million.
In May 2014, the state bought the 88-acre Area 1 lot for $2.5 million and in November bought the remaining 96-acre Area 2 for $2.8
million. The state has not yet determined how it will use the latter segment.
Because of Steelfields’ work, the site had a clean bill of health from the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation, but it still needed a
lot of work before construction could begin.
Ciminelli’s chief concern at that point was finding the best orientation for the solar building. Because of its length, there was not a lot of
leeway in how the building could be oriented. There were also concerns about what might be left underground and out of sight that
might impede construction.
Using the old plans and overlays from Google maps, the contractor began pre-digging the site. “We wanted to get an early start so that when the
gun went off, we’d be ready,” Ciminelli says. “We wanted to get out in front of the trades.”
When the building was demolished, a lot of the old equipment and infrastructure was either buried in the debris or thrown into what was left of
the old foundation.
Remains of the steel factory that were unearthed included nearly two tons of old railroad ties, steel ingots, box cars used for
transporting raw ore to the factory and a 15-ft-tall turbine. “Every shovel was a new adventure,” Ciminelli says.
Drilling Deeper
When the debris was cleared, LPCiminelli began punching holes in the site every 20 ft, using a mining drill with teeth capable of
chewing through concrete and a lot of metal.
The holes provided a home for the 6,000 or so 14-in.-dia steel pipe pilings that the contractor sank into the ground. Some of the pilings
had to be sunk to 70 ft or more before they found bedrock.
The site, on a riverbank and about one mile from the shore of Lake Erie, is glacial till. The ground is sandy and silty, and there was no
telling what still might be below grade that might cause differential settlement, Ciminelli says. “Digging deeper could be a double
entendre on this project.”
The pilings, topped with clusters of pile caps, provided a solid support for the massive slab that would become the foundation of the
factory floor.
The pipe piling also provided flexibility, which was important since the design for the manufacturing equipment was being done concurrently
with the construction work. “We could quickly change how the pilings were used to adapt to the shifting equipment design,” says Tom Birdsey,
president and CEO of EYP Architecture & Engineering, one of the design firms working on the project.
As the pilings were sunk, other crews came along behind the piling workers to pour the concrete slab. Under the factory’s office area,
the slab is 8 in. thick; in the production areas, it is 12 in. thick; and it jumps to 19 in. thick in the utility area that will house the plant’s
heavy equipment.
The utility area speaks to the specific high-tech requirements of a solar panel factory. The utility building will occupy 250,000 sq ft and
will be “the brains and the guts” of the factory, Ciminelli says.
It will have an electrical substation, a boiler plant and a gas distribution center to move the 16 different industrial gases required in
making solar panels to the proper place on the production lines. It will also house a water treatment plant.
That plant will have its own $9-million water purification system capable of providing the factory with five different levels of water purity,
ranging from tap water to water that has as little as 1 micron of impurity. It will also have an $18-million to $20-million wastewater
treatment plant that will be able to take in up to 1,200 gallons of water per minute and recycle up to 75% of the water that the factory will
use.
Crews began putting up the plant’s structural steel in mid-February. Roofers and plumbers started working at the site in the spring. It is
such a big building, “you can’t wait for one guy to get out of the way so you can begin,” Ciminelli says.
The factory will require 14 million lb of reinforcing steel and 6,187 tons of structural steel, delivered in three to seven loads of steel per
day. The project topped out in the first half of July.
The plan is to finish enclosing the factory’s shell by October so SolarCity can start bringing in its equipment. Testing and production will
begin next year, with full production expected in the first quarter of 2017.
When it is complete, the factory will have five separate assembly lines, each able to produce enough solar panels to generate 200 MW.
Ambitious plans
It is not just the size and scope of the project that is large. The state program that got the ball rolling also had outsized ambitions for the
local economy.
At its peak, the SolarCity worksite is expected to employ 1,460 workers, with another 1,440 jobs created by the facility’s suppliers and
service providers in the Buffalo area. “It has been a real game changer for Buffalo,” Ciminelli says.
The project is also unusual in its organization and financial structure. That was reflected from the outset by the state’s designation of LPCiminelli
as the project developer. The firm has design-build responsibility but is not the developer in the traditional sense of having an ownership
stake. From the start, the contractor had taken on the role of community liaison, dealing with issues such as local concerns about reducing
the noise of the truck traffic going into the worksite.
LPCiminelli is, in effect, an agent of the state and acts as the liaison between the wishes of the tenant, SolarCity, and the actual owner,
the state of New York. “This is not a traditional model by any stretch of the imagination,” Ciminelli says.
The project is the centerpiece of Buffalo Billion, an investment plan that Cuomo announced in his 2012 State of the State speech.
Aspects of Buffalo Billion are patterned on the success of an earlier program in which the state funded the creation of research and
development space to attract innovative technologies to New York.
That program created the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the State University of New York’s Albany campus. Since its
founding about 15 years ago, the college has attracted more than $20 billion in investment from private companies to New York state, according
to David Doyle, a SUNY spokesman.
Its success also resulted in the college being moved away from SUNY Albany jurisdiction and set up as part of SUNY Polytechnic
Institute, a new and separate branch of the state university system with campuses in Albany and in the Utica-Rome metropolitan region.
Fort Schuyler Management Corp., founded in 2009, is the not-for-profit real estate management and development firm affiliated with
SUNY Poly.
The firm acted as the state’s agent in developing the RiverBend project, setting up and conducting the solicitations for the contractor
and engaging in negotiations with SolarCity.
Changing plans
SolarCity, however, was not the original tenant. The RiverBend project originally called for Silevo and Soraa, a solar panel
manufacturer and a maker of LED lights, respectively, to occupy two separate 250,000-sq-ft buildings that would be used for R&D. The
site would also host manufacturing facilities. But when SolarCity acquired Silevo, it agreed to take over the firm’s agreement with the
state, but on a much larger scale. SolarCity hammered out a deal with Empire State Development and Fort Schuyler.
Then everyone working on the project had to scramble. At that point, EYP had been working on the original design for six months. When
SolarCity came in, the firm had to develop new designs for more than 1 million sq ft in less than a week, says Ken Drake, senior project
executive at EYP.
In the end, New York agreed to commit $750 million in taxpayer funds for the project: $350 million to build the factory and $ 400
million in tax credits and funding from New York Power Authority and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
to buy equipment.
SolarCity is committed to investing $5 billion in equipment, which it would be able to keep, and in payroll, both direct and indirect, over
10 years.
The state will own the factory and the equipment it buys. SolarCity will lease the facility and the equipment for $1 a year for 10 years.
Soraa is still in the Buffalo Billion program, but is looking for a new site in the region. There is about $100 million left in the Buffalo
Billion fund.
Showcase
SolarCity has become a showcase project in the state’s efforts to transform western New York from a smokestack economy to a
greener one, according to Doyle. When the factory is running at capacity, “there will be more people working at SolarCity than there were
when Republic Steel was at the height of its operations,” he says.
The unusual partnership structure of the deal also complicated the job for LPCiminelli. The combination of state money and a commercial user
resulted in an aggressive schedule with state requirements to be transparent in the use and deployment of public funds.
Under that mandate, LPCiminelli had to act as the developer and had to contract for the design side of the project. The construction firm
brought on M+W Group to do process engineering and layout of the equipment. EYP Architecture and Engineering designed the
structure, while DPS Engineering performed process engineering and Clough Harbour Associates did the civil engineering work.
In keeping with the green economy ideal, the 100-ft setback along the riverfront with public access will be retained and replanted with
native species.
There will be a bioswale area to guard against flooding. Crushed concrete from the excavation of the site will be used in the parking lot.
And, of course, there will be solar panels to generate some of the power that the plant will consume
In the greenspace bordering the factory, LPCiminelli intends to display the artifacts of the company’s excursion into industrial
archaeology of the site and region. The greenspace will include displays of ore cars, turbines, and ingots.
“Steel is our backbone,” says Peter Cutler, a spokesman for Empire State Development.
The city is proud of its industrial past, even as it looks forward to a more high-tech and green future.