(To read the actual Sacramento Business Journal article CLICK HERE.)

A Roseville construction company has been selected as the lead contractor on a massive refrigerated wine distribution center at the south end of Napa County, the biggest project in the company's history and one of the biggest this year for any company in the region.

Sierra View General Contractor began construction of the $26.7 million, 650,000square-foot warehouse in American Canyon this week. The company expects it will take 11 months to complete.

Sierra View is building the project for Scannell Properties, a privately owned real estate investment and development company based in Indianapolis. Scannell in turn is developing the property for Napa County wineries.

The storage and distribution facility will have an advanced cooling system to maintain the wine at 55 degrees. That kind of temperature control may seem easy in a refrigerator, but this building is going to be 15 acres under one roof. The roof also is being engineered to offer the option of adding solar power with a photovoltaic array, although installing the solar isn't part of Sierra View's contract said Rob Downey, vice president of construction.

Sierra View negotiates most, of its jobs; this one was up for bid. But its bid hit gold by including the use of pre-cast concrete panels rather than the more typical pour-in-place, tilt-up-concrete walls.

For a project slated to start during the rainy season, the pre-cast system won the day. A crew using poured and then tilted- up concrete has to have good weather because concrete cannot be poured in the rain. The pre-cast panels are made in a controlled factory environment, trucked down from Redding and can be assembled quickly, Downey said. Sierra View had experience with the pre-cast system on a 250,000-square-foot warehouse.

The wine cooler project takes the company about 80 miles down the road, but with the current economy, just having the work makes the commute worthwhile.

"We've had it really good for l0 years. We were able to work only in the Sacramento region," Downey said. This year, the majority of work billed will come from outside of Greater Sacramento.

"Going into next year, this is a substantial amount of work to have at a time where there isn't so much work," he said.

The company has kept diverse in its projects, from churches to offices, retail, medical offices and restaurants. The office and retail part of that mix has "just completely tailed off," Downey said. “Our strategy has always been to be diversified in what we do with a wide range of skill sets, and we've been able to stay busy."

With the recent market, however, the company doesn't have the backlog of work it did even a year ago.

The wine building will be on a rail spur just off the main rail lines in Napa, allowing for extremely efficient delivery to the rest of the country. "When you get to a rail spur, it is the most efficient distribution there is," Downey said.

The Napa wine warehouse will be built with hopes of reaching a gold or silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. The construction would achieve LEED by recycling building materials, construction debris, concrete spoils and lumber. The building also would get LEED points for its air conditioning system.

Sierra View has done design-build work on many local restaurants, including the Fat's Asia Bistro & Dim Sum Bar locations in Roseville and Folsom: The company works early in the design of the building to ensure what is called for can be built within budget. That reduces change orders. "We went with them because of the design-build. We've worked with a lot of construction companies, and we found that the architects don't know what aspects of a project are going to cost," said Colin Fat, head of restaurants for Fat Family Restaurants.

"We got a lot of advice and cost feedback about the design and construction that was very accurate-They have a wealth of experience. If they can build something as complex as a restaurant, they can surely build a giant box," Fat said.