Leonard’s Express, which provides refrigerated trucking and warehousing services, plans to celebrate the construction of a new temperature-controlled warehouse in New York with a topping-out ceremony this week in Shortsville.
The state-of-the-art, 114,500-square-foot refrigerated warehouse meets the most stringent requirements for storing temperature-controlled products, the company said. The building is comprised of five 20,000-sq.-ft. rooms, each of which can be temperature-controlled between minus-10 and 45 degrees F.
“This will be a big day for our company, and especially for the dedicated employees who made this warehouse happen,” said Ken Johnson, Leonard’s CEO.
Leonard’s said the warehouse’s location is an “excellent” distribution point for Upstate New York, eastern Canada, and entire Northeast corridor. Located minutes from the New York State Thruway (I-90), the facility also has convenient rail spur access to the Finger Lakes Railway. “Our customers need to deliver their products quickly and efficiently,” Johnson said. “We believe the warehouse will maximize transportation opportunities for them, while minimizing costs and risks for perishable cargo.
“And we expect it to foster and enable the economic development of the county, and the Rochester area.”
The new refrigerated warehouse already is having an impact on the Upstate New York economy, Leonard’s added, employing workers to renovate the facility that was vacated when Great Lakes Kraut closed its local plant. “In 2019, this property was going to be shuttered,” Johnson said. “We purchased it and turned it into a viable business, and now we’re investing in that property and in the community. As the warehouse becomes operational in the next few months, we’ll be adding more staff to manage it.”
The warehouse is designed to meet many customer needs. For starters, carriers can pull their vehicles into a refrigerated loading dock, then open the truck’s doors, so there’s no risk of damaging cargo with a sudden temperature change.
In addition, ethernet communication technology allows authorized end users to log into the refrigeration system remotely and adjust temperature, barometric pressure, heaters, and fan motors, all from a mobile app or computer, Leonard’s said. The building also is energy efficient, with floor insulation and a heated Glycol loop, which prevent floor heaving from permafrost in freezers used over extended periods of time. And the facility’s security system monitors activity inside and outside the buildings, strengthening chain-of-custody compliance.
“This project showcases some of the most advanced technology available for refrigerated warehouses and reinforces (the company’s) position as an elite transportation services provider,” said Kevin Bragg, owner of Chrisanntha Construction. “Leonard’s will use remote sensing of room temperatures, fans, and compressors, so they know if any of the components go offline. If coil pressures increase or decrease, Leonard’s employees will be alerted to potential maintenance issues before they become catastrophic. The drive-through dock technology, where trailer doors are not opened until the truck is sealed to the building, was developed for the food industry to minimize pest infiltration, and in this case, to minimize ambient air entering through an open load dock door prior to a truck connection.
“All of these features are key to keeping perishable foods fresh and significantly reducing energy costs.”
