Des Moines, Iowa Area Businesses, Residents Benefit from Area Public, Private Construction Projects

Contractor to be honored at international CONEXPO-CON/AGG equipment exposition for making a significant difference for the community's quality of life

By Mike Porcaro

The Midwestern city of Des Moines, Iowa can be seen as a microcosm of the quality of life benefits that construction brings to an area by looking at three of the four significant construction projects.

New and expanded office construction provides an improved working environment for area residents and helps companies operate more efficiently. One such project is for the giant social media company Facebook, which is building a one-million-square-foot facility in Altoona. Another is a huge addition to a Microsoft facility in West Des Moines and another is for Wells Fargo, also in West Des Moines, which is adding on to its call center and building a parking garage.

Sun Concrete Pumping of Grimes, Iowa is working on these three projects, and the family-owned business has placed concrete on several jobs for the Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority (WRA).

Combined Sewer Solids Separation Facility

One project is the Combined Sewer Solids Separation Facility designed to curb flooding from the Des Moines River, particularly in burgeoning downtown Des Moines. Completed in 2010, the project vastly improved the quality of drinking water by replacing old sewer pipe that was jeopardizing the clean water supply. The new pump station holds a capacity of 300 million gallons per day.

This project was important to Sun personally, as the work helped them to stay open during the 2009 recession, and keep people employed.

Tier High Flow Pump Station

Another key WRA project was the Southern Tier High Flow Pump Station. This facility provides improved water quality through additional pumping capacity during peak wet weather flows.

In late spring and early summer of 2008, the pump station was inundated with floodwater, damaging much of the equipment in the station. Improvements made in the $4.5 million project allowed WRA to increase the pump station's capacity and created 32 new direct jobs and a number of other jobs indirectly associated with the station. The project is scheduled to be completed in late 2013.

During periods of wet weather, keeping sanitary sewer overflows within the sanitary sewer system in the city of Des Moines is another quality of life challenge taken on by WRA. Sun assisted on construction of the Southwest Area Diversion Facility, which needed improvements, a new lift station, diversion sewers and steel force main with a connection to an existing equalization basin. A massive $18 million project, it called for several yards of new concrete to build pump station screening and electrical facilities, generator enclosures and a common trunk diversion structure.

This project allows the WRA to divert and pump sanitary flows from the western portion of its service area to the equalization basin. Diversion of these lows prevents the treatment facility from being overloaded.

Facility Close to Fort Dodge

Construction of a new $320 million lysine production facility west of Fort Dodge, Iowa is ongoing, for Korean-based CJ BIO America, a leading food and consumer product manufacturer. Work on the 65-acre site is proceeding at a brisk pace. With as many as 350 construction workers, including 14 from Sun, pushing to complete the facility in 2014, the plant is expected to create 180 jobs while producing more than 100,000 metric tons of amino acids annually to be used in the company's product line.

Working with the direction of general contractor Jay-Ton Concrete Construction Co., Memphis, TN, the job was one of the biggest Sun has worked on, pumping about 40,000 cubic yards of concrete, running two to three pumps per day for six months straight.

When Jim Manson founded Sun Concrete Pumping nearly 32 years ago, the company was the only concrete pumper in Iowa. Its motto is 'service is the bottom line" and Jim likes taking on projects that truly bring quality of life to residents.

Sun, which has grown to become the largest pumping company in the state, extends its belief in a better quality of life to company employees. It trains and encourages them to pursue a construction career, and in the last two years it has brought in at least 10 employees from out of state, some as far away as Alaska and Nevada, who have fully relocated and started a new life in Iowa with their families.

For contributions to our quality of life, Sun Concrete Pumping will be recognized at North America's largest construction equipment trade show, CONEXPO-CON/AGG. A company representative and one guest will receive a free trip to the show in Las Vegas in March 2014.

At CONEXPO-CON/AGG, they will see all the innovative new equipment that will continue to support their work for better living brought to you by the men and women of the construction industries.

CONEXPO-CON/AGG is the international gathering place in North America for the construction industries. The event features exhibits of the latest technologies and innovations in equipment, products and services plus extensive industry-targeted education. The next CONEXPO-CON/AGG is March 4-8, 2014 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, USA. More than 100,000 attendees are expected. For more information about CONEXPO-CON/AGG, visit www.conexpoconagg.com.