Building facilities to meet the service needs of an unpredictable contract customer base represents a tremendous challenge. You don't want to build a multi-million-dollar structure that outlives its originally contracted purpose by a decade or more. Then again, you don't want to pour millions into leasing limited-use temporary structures that cannot adequately serve the full scope and term of the project for which they were built.

The ModSpace team in Dallas unveiled an impressive answer to that challenge when it completed the assembly of a "permanent temporary" structure at Lockheed Martin's Missile & Fire Control complex in Grand Prairie, TX.

The new Missile and Fire Control complex integrates over 28 modular units and solves the contractor's unique operating requirements for a flexible office structure that can last forever...
or just a day....

For starters, it features a perimeter frame, floor joists that are spaced closer and thicker plywood than typically found in a temporary modular structure. Combined, these elements provide for a 100-pound-per-square-foot floor load, twice what a standard temporary modular unit is built to bear.

The permanent/temporary building also boasts such modular-structure rarities as a multi-ton rooftop air conditioning unit and a sprinkler-based fire prevention system. Additionally, all lighting, heating and cooling controls tie to a single grid to provide for optimally efficient energy use.

Customer security concerns also meant that special soundproof foam barriers had to be incorporated in all walls from floor to ceiling, and in the ceilings as well. The net effect of these numerous fortifications is that when you walk into the building, by no means does it feel like you're in a trailer.

And yet, when it comes to offering the best attributes of a modular unit, ModSpace's permanent/temporary solution is everything Lockheed could want in a trailer. The entire structure can be segmented into seven smaller buildings each comprised of three to five modular units.

That makes it much easier for Lockheed to re-purpose and/or relocate the 28 units now under lease as needed.