Janicki Industries

Location: Hamilton, Skagit County

Owner/developer: Janicki Industries

Project team: Fisher & Sons, general and concrete contractor; Carletti Architects; DCI Engineers, structural engineer; Concrete Nor’West, ready-mix supplier

Janicki Industries, a composite tooling supplier, develops patterns and molds for aerospace, marine and transportation applications. The company wanted a new facility to house two of the world’s largest computer numerical control five-axis milling machines.

The milling machines operate on a 116-foot foundation, running along parallel tracks supported by 4,000 tons of cast-in-place concrete, and require vibration-free foundations.

To create the ultra-stable foundation for the track towers, the foundations were dug 6 feet deep. Each milling machine operates on 97-foot rail tracks supported by two foundations, each with 10-column towers.

The 4,300-square-foot mat slab for the milling bay was created in three layers. To achieve a perfectly flat top layer, a 2-inch solid steel plate was welded to a tube steel mat in the base slab and honed in place by the milling machine itself.

Along with the foundations for the milling machines, a 154,000-square-foot pad was poured in seven sections. The 85 tilt-up walls were cast on site. Along with the two milling bays and multiple work areas, the building includes an engineering lab, fabrication area and several conference rooms.