Kotte Trucking is a family-owned business that has been providing transportation services for over 85 years. Headquartered in Buffalo Lake, Minnesota, the company chose to expand their services to include warehousing in 2023. Kotte selected Primus to provide design-build services on their very first cross-docking warehouse: a 33,000 SF greenfield facility in Lake Alfred, FL.
The warehousing division is called True Blue Warehousing. This building is one temperature (34°) and stores only produce for now. There are plans for Phase 2 & 3 expansions to bring freezing capabilities.
Project Manager Steve Gill was extremely pleased with how uneventful the project was. “There were two hurricanes, but they mostly passed us,” he said. And the rain that did come down absorbed into the ground. “We were still just dirt then, and the soil is 99% sand,” he said. “The ground soaked the rain right up.”
Primus enlisted trusted trade partners like Ace Electric and North American Fire Protection, which also eased the process. Steve also re-engaged United Contracting Services. “I saw them in Building Connected and Procore and decided to give them a shot,” he said. It went so smoothly they are being engaged on other Primus projects.
One challenging area was permitting. The AHJ was stubbornly slow. Other than that, the project was successfully completed and met all of Kotte’s goals for cost, schedule, quality and safety. “They were a fantastic customer,” Steve said. “Very easy to deal with, and they paid quickly.”
Steve attributes much of the success of the project to the construction team of Superintendent Brad Zeth, Assistant Superintendent BJ Tomkivits and General Superintendent Marc Cabiness Jr. “I can’t say enough about the way the team went about their business. No egos, everyone got along and collaborated to get the job done,” Steve said. “Most importantly, all of our subcontractors went home without injury at the end of each day.”
Steve is moving on to our BD project in Tucson, AZ and Little Caesars in Gaffney, SC. Superintendent Brad Zeth will be joining him at BD in Tucson.