Dow Chemical Company – Project Ascend

The Dow Chemical Company relocated its entire Spring House Technical Center to Collegeville, Pennsylvania. The newly leased space comprised over 800,000 sf across five floors and five buildings. The Collegeville facility was extensively renovated to accommodate a phased relocation and seamless transition of users. Programming meetings and detailed surveys of the existing equipment and laboratories in Spring House were conducted in order to design the required modifications in Collegeville.

Precis served as the lead design professional for this multi-phased, multi-year project, which utilized a design-build approach to accommodate an aggressive, early-phase schedule. The project included the complete gut renovation of the 40,000-sf pilot plant. The pilot plant design included comprehensive architectural and engineering systems design of the waste consolidation, dispensing, pressure cells, carbon black lab, spray dryer, acrylates lab, performance monomers, and plastic additives labs.

Subsequent projects at the Collegeville facility included the complete retrofit of a 125,000-sf office and conference center building, a pharmaceutical coatings research and development (R&D) laboratory suite, a glass-blowing lab, and a flammable cylinder storage space.

The project was named the Best Design-Build Project of the Year in the General Building Contractors Association (GBCA) Construction Excellence Awards.