On 26 June, Goes Handling in De Meern, the Netherlands, suffered a major fire that completely destroyed one of the three handling centres. The damage was great, but the urge to move on very quickly was even greater. “After all, almost three years after starting again with a few Goes family members, after the bankruptcy of Kivits Drunen, the Goes Handling BV has become a success story. Growing volumes, customers and services, and an expansion in Barendrecht earlier this year, have made us profitable from day one,” says Rob van Opzeeland.
“Cooperation came like lightning from insurers, but especially from the municipality of Utrecht, combined with the construction team, which has built three cold stores already for Kivits Drunen, mean that the plans were finished three months after the fire. The construction permit has been granted, and the construction has even started again already. All in record time, as you can see, so that the cold store can be delivered around the turn of the year, before the start of the seasons,” Van Opzeeland says.
The construction team consists of architect Van Galen, Willy Naessens Industriebouw as the building contractor, ROMA for the building of the panels, Nijssen for the cooling system, Den Doorn for the E and W installations, and Jungheinrich for building the scaffolding and the internal transport. In a few months, an extremely modern, green and sustainable building will be erected with 12 loading docks, a green ammonia refrigeration system with high power, a sustainable installation with heat recovery, LED lighting and 6,000 pallet places in mobile scaffolding, so that each pallet can be quickly and efficiently placed and taken. A conditioned floor of nearly 1,200 m2 will also be placed above the loading docks to service as a packing and repacking room, and several offices will be part of the new building.