Modular Industry first for Sainsbury's

Leading food retailer, Sainsbury’s, has further advanced the use and specification of modular construction to extend the retail sales area of one of its supermarkets, utilising pre-installed terrazzo flooring for the first time.

Main contractors, Longcross, and award-winning off-site specialists, Yorkon, completed the scheme to expand the retail accommodation at a Sainsbury’s store in Attleborough, Norfolk. This is the first application of the new high performance floor option from Yorkon, which allows highly durable terrazzo flooring to be fully installed off site in a factory.

The new innovation was developed by Yorkon with Longcross, giving Sainsbury’s the opportunity to use steel-framed modular construction to provide additional retail space, with all the benefits of building off site.

The build time for the store in Attleborough was reduced by six weeks to just three months, minimising disruption to Sainsbury’s customers’ shopping experience during the supermarket extension and refurbishment.

The single-storey brick-clad modular extension runs the full length of the store and has created a complete new frontage and main entrance for the supermarket. It accommodates 16 checkouts, customer toilets, baby change facilities, customer services desk and ATM pods. Full height curtain walling was pre-installed off site together with a large proportion of the fitting out, such as plumbing, flooring, tiling, electrics and internal partitions.

Two fully finished prototype modules were manufactured at the Yorkon production centre in York as part of the development of the new high performance floor option. The Yorkon building system was also engineered to allow removal of some intermediate columns to achieve maximum clear spans preferred in supermarket construction.

Commenting on the use of modular construction, Richard Rust, Head of Construction and Delivery at Sainsbury’s said, “Modular construction is not new to us, however as part of our Develop For Less (DFL) programme and our close collaboration with our supply chain, we have been able to further develop the use of modular construction with the introduction of pre-installed terrazzo flooring.”

“Minimising disruption to our customers when extending or refurbishing our stores is a key issue for Sainsbury’s and there is a clear synergy between constructing buildings off site and the food retail sector.”

“Yorkon has a proven ability to deliver and our close collaboration is working well. We were pleased with the outcome of the Attleborough project and have received good feedback from our customers and colleagues.”

“Modular construction allowed us to build the extension later in the programme to retain as much car parking for customers as possible during the extension and refurbishment, an important benefit on such a constrained site. The modules were installed quickly and with little impact on our customers. Based on the success of Attleborough, we will continue to look at all opportunities for an off-site approach in our development programme.”

Steve Willis, Project Manager at main contractors, Longcross, said, “At Attleborough we had very little space on site so traditional methods of construction would have taken up customer parking for the storage of materials, plant and equipment. The modular approach meant the store was closed for only one day, which reduced overall disruption to customers and the programme time for construction of the new extension. The terrazzo finish in the extension blends in well with the existing store and the end result is very good.”Yorkon has now completed a number of schemes for Sainsbury’s with Longcross – a café extension at Ellesmere Port, a toilet block at Arnold near Nottingham and a larger project to provide a retail extension, new entrance and home delivery facility at a superstore in Worksop.

The new concrete floor option has been developed by Yorkon for high traffic applications, such as supermarkets, and where higher point loadings are required. It allows ceramic tiles and terrazzo floors to be factory-installed, reducing time and improving quality, and will achieve point loads of 7kN and uniformly distributed loads of up to 9kN/m2.

http://www.yorkon.info/



For further PRESS information, please contact:

Joanne Bridges, Bridges Communications
PRO – Yorkon
Tel: 01489 570898, Fax: 01489 570888
Email: jbridges@bridgescommunications.co.uk

Editor’s Notes

1.The Yorkon approach to off-site construction offers a number of clear advantages over site-based building methods:

- enhanced thermal efficiency and greater sustainability
- waste reductions of up to 90 per cent
- programme times reduced by up to 50 per cent
- greater cost control
- less disruption
- safety improved by up to 46 per cent
- earlier occupation and a faster return on investment
- guaranteed quality
- greater design flexibility
- less risk for the client – more than 96 per cent of Yorkon projects have been completed on time and 94 per cent on budget over the past five years – well exceeding construction industry averages

2.Off-site construction involves the manufacture of steel-framed modules in a controlled factory environment, using production line technology, whilst the foundation works are completed on site. The modules are delivered to site by road where they are craned into position in just a few days ready for