Americold

Primus provided design-build services for this 335,000 SF Greenfield cold storage and intermodal distribution facility in Kansas City, Missouri. Developed in partnership with CPKC, the facility serves as a critical connection point for temperature-controlled freight moving between Canada, the United States, and Mexico through CPKC’s Mexico Midwest Express (MMX) service.

This facility was engineered around product velocity and throughput. The facility integrates cold storage, USDA inspection, product handling, and rail transportation within a single operation, reducing transportation handoffs and improving supply chain efficiency.

The facility includes freezer space, convertible cooler space designed for future freezer conversion, USDA inspection rooms, a cold dock, and a two-story office. Supporting high-volume operations are more than 100 dock doors, approximately 22,000 pallet positions, and a 63-door cross-dock operation designed to accelerate product movement.

A defining feature of the project is its approximately 100-foot clear-span cross-dock staging area, eliminating interior columns that could disrupt forklift traffic and warehouse operations. The building was designed to support inventory turns of up to 60 times per year, significantly increasing throughput compared to a conventional cold storage facility. Automated stretch wrapping further improves operational consistency and load protection.

To support long-term flexibility, cooler areas were designed with underfloor heating systems, freezer-capable thermal performance, and infrastructure to accommodate future refrigeration expansion. Sustainability efforts included repurposing approximately 25 acres of existing airfield concrete from the former Richards-Gebaur Air Force Station as building pad material, reducing waste and imported aggregate requirements.

Today, the facility serves as a next-generation cold chain logistics hub, combining storage, inspection, distribution, and rail transportation to strengthen food supply chain connectivity across North America.