New Bedford, MA North Coast Seafoods named Ocean Builders Inc. as the construction manager for the 30,000 s/f expansion of its refrigerated seafood processing facility at 3 Blackmer St.

North Coast Seafoods chose Ocean Builders because of their understanding of the FDA construction regulations as well as their ability to provide the coordinated and cost effective construction program needed to complete this multi million-dollar facility.

Ocean Builders began construction in late summer 2016 with little disruption to North Coast production.

Along with Ocean Builders is the construction oversight firm Rivermoor Engineering.

An aggressive schedule complicates the construction process requiring the new addition services to be tied to the existing plant without periods of plant shut downs or other services outages. These efforts are accomplished with a lot of planning and coordination with the North Coast Seafoods general manager Bruce Fontes, construction superintendent Phil Bastianelli and the rest of the team. 

 This fully refrigerated facility will house an employee break room, two 80-foot conveyor-processing lines, and two 2,400 s/f flash freezers. These freezers are capable of freezing product in 24 hours to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit along with raw product refrigeration units. Shipping and receiving docks once completed will allow product to enter at one end of the facility be processed and exit the other end to market more than doubling the plant production and output. Several other self contained systems complement the operations such as dry goods and cool storage capabilities.

 The modernized facility is a structural steel, refrigeration panel, 22’ clear height, rubber roof complex over 300’ long and with 15 refrigeration units to run the 24/7 operation. Construction is scheduled for completion this spring.