Gorilla Fireworks has supplied Alaskans in Houston County with fireworks from their roadside stand for years. But when the state expanded the highway where the stand was and the County updated their municipal code making vendors sell fireworks indoors, Gorilla Fireworks had to upgrade their stand.
The fireworks vendor, a staple in Houston County, received money from the Alaskan government to build a new facility. Gorilla Fireworks bought a 15,000-sf, pre-engineered metal building from Qingdao SuperM, a Chinese manufacturer to serve as their new warehouse and store. Unfortunately, the Chinese manufacturer had not designed the warehouse to U.S. or Alaskan building codes; the structure, as designed by the manufacturer, would fail under Alaska’s higher-than-average snow and seismic loads.
So, Gorilla Fireworks brought DCI Engineers onboard as the Engineer of Record for the project to redesign the warehouse’s steel superstructure and foundation to hold up in Alaska’s severe climate. DCI worked with Gorilla Fireworks, the local Alaskan government and the PEMB manufacturer as an engineer and as a Chinese to English-language translator to conform the PEMB’s structure to U.S. building codes, get all parties on the same page and keep the project progressing.
The new Gorilla Fireworks warehouse opened in 2024, just in time for new year’s celebrations.
