iPort 12 - A Former Landfill Comes of Age

[ By Edmund Klimek ]

iPort 12 restored 15 acres of wetlands for the Borough of Carteret, New Jersey.

Large-scale warehouse spaces located as far as 25 miles from U.S. ports are in high demand. At first glimpse, the 113-acre future site of iPort 12, located right off New Jersey Turnpike Interchange 12 and within only 10 miles of Elizabeth Port Authority Marine Terminal, Newark Liberty International Airport and Port Newark may seem like an obvious choice for development. "The site has the perfect location, but it was not a pretty place," said Ken Kloo, administrator of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Brownfield Remediation and Reuse. The brownfield site contained three neglected 75-year-old municipal solid waste landfills with a history of leaching contaminants into the Rahway River and adjacent wetlands, despite being closed in 1981. The Borough of Carteret was under administrative court order to close the landfill, but it simply lacked the means to do so. In the late 1980s, Carteret set up the site as a landfill reclamation district to encourage investors to take action with the land. For the next decade, plans to remediate and develop the land stalled, and talks of building a shopping mall over the landfills fizzled.

iPort 12 reclaimed for development more than 100 acres of contiguous land that had been lost as a landfill. During construction, as many as 300 to 400 workers were on the project site.

Location, Location, Location
In 2003, New York-based real estate development company P/A Associates acquired development rights for the site. The company had prior experience with brownfield developments and site remediation though never to this scale, said project manager Doug Slayton. Still, "the site's superb location was unbeatable." Not only was iPort 12 located near seaports, but it also offered other infrastructure benefits. Warehouses in Central New Jersey, 20 miles away, were already importing labor from the north.

Despite their portfolio, P/A had less expertise in industrial development. Their real estate broker, CB Richard Ellis, brought in architectural design firm KSS Architects LLP, who had extensive experience in industrial redevelopment and master planning with past projects that included distribution centers for Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen of America. From KSS' initial design studies, it was clear the sheer size of the land would translate into considerable value because properties with similar proximity to the port were significantly smaller. Along with the massive site, however, came its massive environmental challenges. KSS decided to step back and view the project as a blank slate. The company knew how to design state-of-the art industrial buildings, and iPort 12 was no different despite its inherent shortcomings. KSS mocked up a series of design alternatives, experimenting with different building sizes and configurations, all sharing one thing in common: The project would bring to the port a new distribution center that was traditionally only possible with large, open greenfield sites.

Vertical glass clerestories sharply contrast with iPort's mostly concrete exterior and introduce daylight into the distribution center. At nightfall, interior lights emanating outward through the glass expanses give iPort a dramatic glow from the turnpike.

Site Development Is a Team Effort
KSS began meeting extensively with local Carteret officials, who welcomed the idea of using the industrial development as the mechanism by which they would fulfill their duty to close the landfills. Second, KSS began to produce documentation for the site, such as plans and elevations, to attract investment interest from national developers and prove the project could bring substantial benefits to the environment and economy.

The project attracted interest from Panattoni Development Company, an international development company looking to expand its presence in the Mid-Atlantic region. At the end of 2003, P/A formed a joint venture with Panattoni as a development partner, who then enlisted Jim Murray as their project principal. With support from an international developer, the team engaged Menlo Engineering as the project's civil and site engineer, SESI Consulting Engineering as its environmental engineer, Mueser Rutledge for geotechnical and foundation engineering and Harrison-Hamnett, P.C., as its structural engineer.

Coinciding with the project's design and investigation phase was the redesign of Interchange 12. Because the mere location of the distribution center would not guarantee success, the project also had to make the most of its surrounding infrastructure. After more design iterations, the team created a master site plan prominently orienting two buildings on the turnpike -- one building at one million square feet and the second at 200,000 square feet.

The project's design takes advantage of light, shadow and texture, creating an iconic industrial form easily identified from the New Jersey Turnpike.

Land Initiatives, Permitting and Zoning
The site's former use as a landfill was one obvious complication in the permitting and approvals process, as were its proximity to the wetlands and waterfront. "The project required 38 major permits just to get it off the ground," Murray said. Luckily, iPort 12 had support from several local and governmental organizations -- including the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and The Portsfield Initiative, a joint effort by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey -- to help "transform underutilized and brownfield sites into productive properties." Carteret also established the zone as a Redevelopment Zone, which helped expedite the project's approval process, assist with securing environmental permits, arrange for the sale of municipal land and coordinate eminent domain proceedings.

Most of the project's permits were with the New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection. For a site this large, the permitting process would take time no matter how well the paperwork was organized. Panattoni and the project team took the initiative to make the process go smoothly, Kloo said. "The project came about through outstanding cooperation between the team and the DEP. Panattoni approached us early on in the project and knew they had to factor permitting into the schedule." Just one more question loomed over the project team -- how do you design a high-performing industrial structure on a landfill the size of 86 football fields? "From the slab up, we were dealing with typical vertical construction," Murray said. "From the slab down, it was an entirely different story that presented many difficulties."

Thoughtful planning between vertical development and site development allowed the iPort 12 buildings to become state-of-the-art distribution centers with high-floor load capacity and unprecedented 80-foot structural bays.

Structural Prototyping
With the knowledge that the soil conditions at the site would be challenging and that a skeptical market would demand only the very best in performance, the project team then calculated anticipated structural loads for iPort 12. First, the team identified the maximum loading requirements of prospective tenants, including lateral loads from racking and dynamic point loads from equipment. Then the team examined where such loads would occur and finally, how to actually engineer the building's structure. The buildings would need to be supported on piles driven past the garbage down to bedrock 70 feet below. Foreseeing this situation, Panattoni had quickly moved to procure abandoned natural gas lines that would ultimately comprise 8,000 structural piles.

Typically, warehouses are designed from top to bottom, meaning building parameters dictate the foundation and structural support. However, iPort required the team to reverse engineer the project starting from the project's loads, structural pile types and soil conditions to create architecture in a manner that would respond best to the site and function effectively as a warehouse. The design also had to balance conditions below the slab with the project's requirements above the slab. Through design iterations, KSS determined 80 feet by 80 feet structural bays would balance the economics of the pile support systems and the building's steel structure, providing substantial clear space inside. The support system would also work with the installation of the numerous utilities that service a warehouse.

In keeping with iPort 12's massive size, KSS Architects designed and scaled the building's entrances to be distinguishable from a distance.

Utilizing Site Orientation to Maximize Building Design
Similar to the master plan, KSS designed the buildings' architecture to respond to its site and proximity to the turnpike. The flyover configuration of the turnpike partly dictated the buildings' shapes. To augment its already prominent visibility, KSS increased the surface area of the building elevations facing the turnpike. These elevations also had the added attribute of facing west, which would allow the building forms to engage with sunlight and shadows.

KSS wanted the design to be bold, iconic and instantly recognizable from the turnpike. Because much of the project's budget had been invested into environmental remediation and sitework, the design also had to be economical. KSS took advantage of the light and shadows offered by the site orientation to create a building envelope from simple concrete planes of texture. Smooth-faced panels alternate with ribbed panels and vertical concrete fins periodically project outward.

Persevering Through Environmental Restoration
From 2003 to 2006, iPort 12 was in the planning and design stages. As a result of the collaborative relationships that had developed among the design team, and close coordination with NJDEP and Carteret Township, by the time the project began construction, everyone was ready. In nine months, the team saw their efforts rapidly become reality. "There were days I would come to the site and there would be 300 to 400 people working," said Murray.

By the summer of 2007, iPort 12 had successfully capped three municipal landfills, provided state-of-the art leachate collection and treatment systems, a methane collection system, and restored 15 acres of wetlands. Carteret had a new, easily recognizable piece of industrial architecture that would provide opportunities for local employment, reinvigorate the economy and promote use of local infrastructure and the growth of Port Newark.

A Model of Collaboration
It took just nine months to construct iPort 12 International Trade & Logistics Center, a 1.2 million square foot industrial distribution center in Carteret, N.J. Yet it was the careful collaboration of a visionary development group, a diverse team of professionals, and state and local governments and agencies that occurred over the course of years that was the most impressive. Their efforts turned a site that was once a landfill and environmental and community burden into an exceptional industrial development.