A joint venture between Walbridge and local contractor Yates Construction, the goal of Phases I and II of the Automotive Manufacturing Facility at Nissan North America, was to successfully build the first automotive manufacturing facility in Mississippi. The 2.8 million-square-foot plant, located on a 1,400-acre site, is equipped to produce 250,000 vehicles annually and accommodate 4,000 employees.
As site manager, Yates/Walbridge was responsible for overall coordination between all the subcontractors and suppliers involved with the buildings, site and production equipment/tooling. This included maintaining the master summary schedule, site logistics plan, safety program, building access and testing services. The joint venture conducted weekly site meetings, maintained daily reports from each prime contractor and published the consolidated monthly report. The team was also tasked with an 800,000-square-foot expansion to the Nissan facility in Canton, which increased the plant capacity by 151,000 units per year.