Manufacturing Plant Construction in the Boulder Valley

Longmont reports manufacturing as its largest industry, employing 7,188 people in 2022 data, ahead of professional and technical services and retail. That statistic is useful to us less for its size than for what it tells us about the buyers: plant managers who run lean, who already own a building, and who want to add a line or a utility without stopping the one next to it. Our manufacturing work in this valley is mostly about building around production.

The market also has a long memory for tenants that leave. Amgen closed its Longmont campus in 2015, and AstraZeneca announced in 2016 a purchase of 159 acres of vacant land just west of that campus to support its Boulder operations. Industrial property here changes hands, changes use and gets reworked, which makes adaptive reuse a normal part of a plant job rather than an exception. We assess an existing structure for floor capacity, power and clear height before we recommend building new.

Whatever you make, the plant is a utility project wrapped in a building. We scope it that way from the beginning.

Utilities first, walls second

A plant owner usually knows the process in detail and has only a rough idea of what it demands from the building. We start the conversation with the utility list: power at the service entrance and at each machine, compressed air, process water and waste, exhaust, make-up air, process cooling. Each of those has a route, a clearance and a failure mode, and each is much cheaper to place before the slab is poured than after. A trench for process piping cut into a finished floor costs several times what it would cost as a formed trench in the original pour.

From there we develop the structure around equipment loads, not the other way around. Heavy presses, furnaces and test stands sit on thickened slabs or isolated foundations, and crane-served bays need runway beams that the roof frame must be designed to support. Our manufacturing facility construction team works with the owner's process engineers from the earliest sketch, and crane buildings are an area where early coordination avoids rework.

The employers and sites that shape plant work here

Large plant-adjacent employers in the valley give the market its character. Boulder's 2022 financial report lists Ball Corporation, with 4,800 employees, among the city's largest employers, alongside the university and the school district. In Longmont, the 2020 list includes Seagate Technology at 1,430 and Intrado at 755. A mix like that means demanding tenants with specialized building needs, and it means the building has to be ready for owners who will inspect it closely.

It also explains why we pay attention to the nearby Flatiron business park district. Flatiron Park is described as a master-planned business park of about 200 acres with roughly 2.3 million rentable square feet and more than 100 companies, as of a 2017 article. That mix of flex light industrial space, lab and office is a good model for how a plant can share a campus with its neighbors.

Building safely beside a running line

Phased work in a live plant requires a different kind of safety planning from a greenfield project. We write a site-specific plan with the owner's safety lead that covers hot work permits, lockout and tagout coordination, forklift and truck routes, dust and noise control, and the temporary partitions that separate the work area from production. Everyone entering the work area is briefed on the owner's rules in addition to ours.

We also plan shutdown windows carefully. A tie-in to a live electrical bus or a process line is scheduled with the owner's maintenance team, often in a weekend or holiday shutdown, with materials staged and pre-assembled in advance so the work itself is short. Our experience with phased construction on occupied sites is the foundation for these tie-ins.

Codes, energy and review in the plant context

Colorado has no single statewide commercial building code. The Home Builders Association of Metro Denver tracker dated January 20, 2026 lists Boulder on the 2024 codes, Longmont and Lafayette on the 2021 IBC with 2024 adoption planned, and Erie on the 2021 IBC while weighing an update. The City of Longmont's own building codes page lists the 2024 International Codes as adopted as of July 1, 2026, so confirm which edition applies on your submittal date. For a manufacturer planning a multi-year capital program, the practical advice is to lock the permit application date and design to the edition in force on that date.

Energy rules touch process buildings in specific ways. In Boulder, the Energy Conservation Code carves out exceptions for labs and for industrial process loads, and requires natural gas used under an exception to be offset by on-site renewables except for certain uses. We read those provisions with the owner's engineer to find out which loads qualify and which do not, so the mechanical design is not built on an assumption that fails at plan review.

Where plant budgets actually go

The shell is the smaller number. Process utilities, electrical service, specialty slabs and commissioning of production equipment commonly take the larger share of a plant budget, and they are the items least visible in early concept pricing. We break them out so you can see how the structure changes with the process, and so a change in equipment does not mean a new estimate from zero.

Owners can control cost by deciding early how much future capacity to build in. Oversizing the electrical service and leaving a capped stub for process water cost little at construction and a great deal later. We help you weigh those options against your capital plan.

Who we build plants for

Our plant work serves manufacturers across a range of sectors, and the owners of buildings who lease to them. We coordinate with commercial real estate developers on spec and build-to-suit shells that can accommodate a range of users, and we handle the specialized food and beverage processing work that has its own sanitary requirements.

If your plant is changing hands or changing use, we can assess the building and report on what it can and cannot support before you commit capital.

Describe the line and we will describe the building

Share the process flow, the utility needs and the site you are considering. We will come back with a scope outline, a phasing approach and a budget range, and we will tell you plainly if reuse beats new construction.

Questions Owners Ask

Should we build a new plant or reuse an existing industrial building?

Reuse is often faster, but only if the floor, power and clear height fit. We assess slab thickness and condition, electrical capacity, roof loads and column spacing, then price the upgrades against new construction. Longmont's recent history of campuses changing hands means many buildings are good candidates.

Can you build around our running production line?

Yes, and it is a large share of our plant work. We plan partitions, dust control, traffic routes and utility shutdowns with your operations team and schedule disruptive work in planned shutdown windows. The plan is written, reviewed with you and updated as conditions change.

What permits and reviews should we expect for a new plant?

Expect building permit review under the town's adopted code, fire review, site and drainage review and utility coordination. Boulder additionally requires a Floodplain Development Permit for any building with part of its structure in the 100-year floodplain. We run these reviews in parallel and bring the design team into early meetings with staff.

How do you handle process equipment lead times?

We track equipment delivery dates on the master schedule and request foundation and utility requirements from the manufacturer as early as possible. Where the equipment is not selected, we carry an allowance and a placeholder design. Long-lead items are ordered the moment the design is stable.

Does the all-electric requirement in Boulder apply to a manufacturing plant?

The City of Boulder's commercial energy code requires all-electric or non-fossil design with listed exceptions, including labs and certain process and cooking loads. Whether your plant qualifies depends on what the equipment does. We review the process list with your engineer and the city early.

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