Project Description

In July 2018, an EF-3 tornado ripped through the Marshalltown, Iowa, causing considerable damage throughout the community. Lennox International lost a sizable portion of their production facility as well as their regional office building that stood since the early 1900’s. Amid speculation about the company’s future in Marshalltown, Lennox committed to rebuild and remain. Pelds Design Services was honored to be selected as part of the team to help Lennox with this effort.

The plant rebuild was an immediate need, so the team quickly put together a plan for over 106,000 sf of production space to replace the series of smaller buildings that were lost in the storm. The team took time to analyze a pre-engineered building solution, as well as a conventionally framed approach. In the end, the conventional solution was selected, and the team developed an efficient design to seamlessly blend with the remaining facility and the new office building to come.

The Pelds team joined the project after initial concepts had been developed for the office. We worked closely with the Lennox leadership team to develop final designs from the concepts. In the end, the team completely redesigned the look and feel of the office building. An important philosophy that informed the design was a desire to show the community that Lennox was committed to Marshalltown and are here to stay. The office building is roughly 40,000 sf over two floors. Key features include a colonnade outside of the first-floor offices, a curved façade, a museum space to function as the main entrance, space for sales training, and a room for testing of their products. Materials are primarily natural limestone laid up as a full depth veneer, aluminum composite panels, and glass storefront.

Construction on the manufacturing facility started in late 2020 and is anticipated to be complete in late 2021. The office started construction in early 2021 and is anticipated to be complete in mid-2022.