Wolverine Packing Co., Detroit, Mich., opened the doors to its new 180,000-square-foot meat processing and cold storage facility.

The state-of-the-art facility, build by Tippmann Innovation, Fort Wayne, Ind., is the company’s fifth processing plant and entails a second freezer with capacity to store 20,000 pallets. 

In 2016, Wolverine owners Jim Bonahoom and Jay Bonahoom reached out to Tippmann Innovation for help in designing and building a new facility.  

The warehouse expands the market district footprint to the north and sits on a reclaimed residential neighborhood, previously home to 32 housing structures buried underneath a deteriorating public park. As part of the brownfield contract with Detroit, Wolverine provided funds to redevelop approximately 4 acres of the property into a revitalized park for families in the surrounding neighborhood.

"What made Tippmann Innovation unique was not only their experience building cold storage and processing facilities, but also their ability to complete the civil engineering and brownfield assessments while communicating with the state's environmental department to ensure everything was up to code. It was a huge asset to have a contractor with a complete understanding of brownfield laws and the experience to build a world-class facility," says Jay Bonahoom.