Food and Beverage Processing Plants in the Boulder Valley

The floor drain tells you whether a food plant was built by someone who understands washdown. Water has to leave a production room in minutes, not hours, which means slopes of a quarter inch per foot or so toward drains, a slab with a continuous seamless topping, and wall bases coved so there is no ledge for residue. We build food and beverage plants and kitchens for makers who sell into a Boulder Valley market where brands live or die on how clean the product looks and how consistently it is made.

The buyers we talk with run a wide range of operations: a craft brewer adding a packaging hall, a snack or tea maker consolidating production and storage under one roof, a commissary kitchen that supplies local restaurants, a cold chain operator that handles ingredients for several of the above. Each needs sanitary design, reliable utilities and a permit path that does not stall during a hiring ramp. We work with owners and their food-safety consultants from preconstruction through the first inspection.

Room types, finishes and utilities

Start with the room types, because they set the finishes. Raw receiving, production, packaging and dry storage each call for a different surface and a different level of washdown. Production floors usually get a resinous or cementitious urethane topping over a slab with sloped drains and trench drains at wet processes. Walls in wet areas are often insulated metal panels or FRP-faced board with sealed joints, and ceilings need a cleanable surface above equipment that is not stained by condensation. We put the room schedule on the drawings and build mock-ups of floor-to-wall transitions so the owner's quality team approves them before we repeat them across the plant.

Utilities follow the process. Hot water, compressed air, steam or glycol, process wastewater pretreatment and large electrical loads for motors and refrigeration all need space and coordination. We run these rough-ins with mechanical and electrical trades during preconstruction, since equipment submittals from the owner's process vendor usually change a few of them. Where the plant needs cold storage for ingredients or finished goods, we coordinate with our cold storage facility work so freezers and coolers share a slab and a refrigeration plant efficiently.

Where gas, flood and permit rules bite

Energy code treats cooking and process loads specially in Boulder. The City of Boulder's 2024 Energy Conservation Code requires commercial projects to be all-electric or use other non-fossil sources, with exceptions for commercial cooking, hospitals, labs, large S-1 occupancies with constant vehicle traffic and emergency generators. Natural gas used under those exceptions generally has to be offset by on-site renewables, but commercial cooking, emergency generators and lab and industrial process loads are carved out of that offset. In practice a bakery oven line or a kettle kitchen can keep gas where the process needs it, while the rest of the building follows the electric rules. We confirm every one of those classifications with the plan reviewer before equipment is bought.

Floodplain rules are the second permitting concern. The City of Boulder requires a Floodplain Development Permit for any building with part of its structure in the 100-year floodplain, even for roof overhangs and footings, and in Gunbarrel flooding is described as the principal natural hazard. A processing plant near a creek must also protect product, chemicals and electrical gear from water, so we set finished floor elevations and equipment pads with the flood study in hand, not after it.

Where makers build in the valley

Longmont is where much of the valley's production space sits. The city's 2022 data lists manufacturing as its largest industry at 7,188 people, ahead of professional, scientific and technical services and retail trade, which is why makers of all sizes look at Longmont first for production and distribution space. Gunbarrel, an unincorporated community, holds distribution and light-industrial buildings, including a consumer-products distribution building at 63rd Street and Spine Road noted in a 2016 report (ownership and use may have changed since then). Those buildings show a pattern in this valley: production and storage live in the same area, often in older tilt-up or metal buildings that need renovation for a new tenant.

East Boulder's planning also matters. The East Boulder Subcommunity Plan, finalized October 6, 2022, guides the area as an employment center and keeps many industrial areas industrial, which gives a food maker some confidence that production uses will remain permitted there. Buyers in manufacturing should still check the specific parcel's zoning before signing a lease or a purchase contract.

Sanitary design and equipment timing

Sanitary design drives how we build, and we explain the reasoning to owners who are new to it. Avoid horizontal ledges, hollow tubing that traps moisture, exposed insulation, and any location where a mop cannot reach. Doors and frames are stainless or coated for washdown. Light fixtures are sealed and rated for wet locations. Air handling is zoned so that raw receiving does not push air into finished-product rooms. We submit these choices in the submittal log and revise them as the owner's food-safety team reviews, rather than finding the conflict at inspection.

Schedule risk concentrates in equipment lead times, which often exceed the construction time for the building itself. We schedule tank, oven, packaging-line and refrigeration deliveries against slab placement and wall erection so the rooms are ready when the equipment arrives, and we plan access openings so large vessels can be set before the final wall panels are installed. If the owner wants to start production in phases, our phased construction on occupied sites approach lets an existing line keep running while new space is built.

What outweighs the shell

The cost drivers in a food plant are rarely the building shell. Slab and finish systems, wall and ceiling panels, drains and wastewater pretreatment, refrigeration capacity, and the electrical service for production equipment usually outweigh the base structure. A larger electrical service often means a long lead time for switchgear and transformers, so we raise utility requests with the electric provider as soon as loads are known. Owners who compare building price per square foot between a food plant and a warehouse of the same size are usually surprised by the gap, and we help them see it room by room.

For buyers who are not yet sure whether a new building or an existing one makes sense, we can assess a renovation as well. Our renovation and adaptive reuse work covers upgrading an older flex light industrial building into a production space, and our manufacturing plant pages describe the shared structure and utility questions.

Planning a food or beverage facility?

Tell us what you make, your target throughput and whether you are building new or converting a space. We will return a room-by-room scope, utility needs and a schedule tied to equipment lead times.

Questions Owners Ask

Can a food plant in Boulder keep natural gas for cooking or process loads?

Under the City of Boulder's 2024 Energy Conservation Code, commercial cooking is one of the exceptions to the all-electric requirement, and commercial cooking, emergency generators and lab and industrial process loads are excluded from the on-site renewable offset. The rest of the building generally follows the electric requirements. The classification is made by the plan reviewer, so we raise it at the start of design.

What floor system should we expect in a wet production room?

A resinous or cementitious urethane topping over a sloped slab with trench drains is the usual choice for washdown areas, with coved bases at the walls. The exact system depends on thermal shock from hot water, forklift traffic and chemical exposure. We build a mock-up and let your quality team approve it before we repeat it.

How does flood risk change where we can build a plant?

In Boulder a Floodplain Development Permit is required for any building with part of its structure in the 100-year floodplain, and in Gunbarrel flooding is described as the principal natural hazard. We set floor elevations and equipment pads using the flood study, and we protect electrical gear and chemical storage above the design flood level.

Is it better to convert an existing building or build new?

It depends on clear height, slab condition and utilities. An older flex building may already have an acceptable shell, but adding drains, a new topping, refrigeration and heavy electrical service can cost nearly as much as new. We tour the building with you and price both paths before you commit to a lease.

What delays food plant schedules most often?

Equipment lead times and utility service. Ovens, tanks and refrigeration systems can take longer to deliver than the shell takes to build, and a new electrical service may need a long wait for gear. We map those dates onto the construction schedule at the start so the rooms are finished when the equipment arrives.

Do we need a food-safety consultant before design starts?

Not always, but it helps. Your process, regulatory path and customer audits shape zoning of rooms, finishes and airflow. We work with your consultant or quality lead during preconstruction so changes occur on paper instead of in the field.

Related

More Building Types

Browse the rest of our building types pages for Boulder and nearby Colorado communities, or contact us to talk through your project.