Drive Automotive Phase VII – Expansion

Piedmont, South Carolina

The Drive Automotive Phase VII – Expansion project was the construction of the infrastructure and installation of new large-scale manufacturing press pits in the BMW facility plant in Greer, South Carolina. The new automobile body stamping press creates body parts specifically for Z4, X3, X5, and X6 models.

The new press pit foundation included pits, tunnels, embedded millwright plates, and embedded steel mounting brackets for the press. One unique challenge was that the project required a 350’ L x 20’ D x 75’ W excavation for the foundations in the production facility while work continued 24 hours a day.

Thousands of square feet of soil nail temporary shoring walls were installed to allow for safe construction of the deep foundations as well as thousands of cubic yards of soil that had to be excavated and then backfilled, all while moving dump trucks and large construction equipment through the aisleways of a precision manufacturing facility to access the work area. Over 200 tons of structural and miscellaneous steel was used for just 24,000 square feet of new construction.

The building addition consisted of 14,000 square feet of 45-foot-high by 75-foot-wide open bays and a 12,000-square-foot machine and tool room facility expansion. Manhattan also expanded a portion of the office space that provided much-needed restrooms and break areas for the plant’s workforce. A 500-foot-long retaining wall was constructed to allow for the temporary relocation of shipping and receiving traffic during the construction of the high bay portion of this work.