Location: 222 West Main Street - Lowell Concrete Contractor: Todd & Sargent Concrete Supplier: Consumers Concrete Project Owner: King Milling Silo
When King Milling opened in 1890, Michigan had 700 flour mills. That number dropped to 534 by 1900 and only 28 in 1958, over 65 years ago. Today, King Milling is the oldest continually operating business in Kent County and is one of only six remaining flour mills in the state.The company has been family-owned and operated from the beginning and is now in the fourth and fifth generations of Doyle family ownership.
The new silo complex is part of a $42 million expansion which includes a new flour mill integrated into the silo building.The 35,000-square-foot, six-floor expansion at King Milling’s headquarters in downtown Lowell will produce 750,000 pounds of flour a day, increasing total production to more than 2.5 million pounds per day at its four on-site mills.
The base slab for the new silo and mill building is 44 inches thick and was placed in the fall of 2022. Todd & Sargent's crews then started building the slipform mold for the walls on top of that slab. The slip forming for the 108-foot-tall building started in late November 2022 and was completed in a continuous placement about five days later.
The process involves placing concrete in 6-inch lifts throughout the slipform mold and then raising the mold approximately 1 inch every 5 minutes. Precast beams to support the floors are also placed by crane and cast into the wall sections during the vertical slip-forming process.
The same procedure was used for the loadout building, albeit in a smaller footprint. This building is used to load the finished flour into bulkers for transport.As you can see, this impressive project is a testament to the ingenuity of contractors and engineers and the solid investment that can be built with concrete.
