Henkel took home the first-place award from The Connecticut Building Congress for major renovations or expansions on its new research and development facility at 4 Trefoil Drive in Trumbull. The award was presented to the Henkel project team at an awards ceremony held at the Bond Ballroom in downtown Hartford on June 12.
Henkel performed a total interior renovation of the pre-existing building to house its expanded laundry & home care research and development group, based at neighboring 30 Trefoil Drive.
“We were in need of expanded research and development space to support our growing business with retail customers in North America, and the building at 4 Trefoil Drive was a perfect fit for both location and overall potential,” commented Marc Estra, P.E., Regional Head of Facilities Management for Henkel North America. “As the space was previously an industrial warehouse, we were able to start with a blank slate and create the exact space we needed within the existing four walls, even adding a second floor within the current building structure. Ultimately, we built a building within a building,” he said.
The state-of-the-art expanded facility spans 28,000 square feet and includes formulation laboratories, a consumer product and fragrance evaluation center, and two pilot plants that support production scale up capabilities for the company’s Beauty Care and Laundry & Home Care divisions.
The Connecticut Building Congress recognizes “outstanding building projects that exemplify project team excellence and represent the best practices in teamwork by project owners, architects, engineers, constructors and trades.ˮ Annually, the CBC recognizes project teams who have met or surpassed goals and achieved superior project quality through their close collaboration.
As part of the project, a pedestrian footbridge was constructed to connect the 4 and 30 Trefoil properties, creating a small campus environment. The renovation began in April 2017 and was completed in November 2017, with significant time savings coming from a modular mechanical room that was constructed and tested offsite and trucked in virtually ready to run.