C.S. Davidson recently completed the first phase of expanding H.R. Ewell’s East Earl Township headquarters on a project led by Engineer Chris Ressler, PE.
Perched along Division Highway in East Earl Township, a new H.R. Ewell headquarters rises from the site where two aging single-wide trailers once housed the inner workings of the bulk food transportation company.
With nearly 500 tractor-trailers in its care and the management of nationwide and international truck transportation for such companies as Hershey, M&M, and Domino Sugar, the H.R. Ewell team looked forward to a new space for years.
In April, the H.R. Ewell team moved into its new headquarters.
The new two-story front building features a conventional steel frame structure and blends H.R. Ewell’s signature deep green metal sheeting with stone facing and two-story windows wrapping around the new reception and office areas.
Inside, natural daylight fills the space, and a passthrough fireplace adds warmth to the clean, minimalist space.
Downstairs, a break room and showers offer tractor-trailer drivers a place to reset between jobs. Bright conference rooms and cubicle workspaces are placed throughout the 30,000-square-foot building.
“We tried to be as open and bring as much sunlight in as possible,” says Rick Robinson, H.R. Ewell’s Facilities Manager.
A collaborative site development project
In collaboration with Cornerstone Design-Architects and DK Builder, C.S. Davidson Project Engineer Chris Ressler, PE, focused on developing a multi-phased headquarters to support H.R. Ewell’s administrative and transportation infrastructure.
The East Earl site, the first of what has expanded to include 13 other terminals, remains the company’s central hub for operations, safety, IT, and fleet management.
The new building was designed to house these departments in a modern, efficient space that supports the company’s broader logistical needs. CSD provided the project’s structural, inspection, and testing services, from conceptual layout and structural design through permitting and construction administration.
Phase I of the project combined Chris’s design of the two-story front office with the first half of a pre-engineered metal building that will serve as the shop area for H.R. Ewell’s fleet of tractor-trailers. During construction, employees continued to work out of two trailers and the company’s original 1960s-era shop.
Early in the project, Chris learned that the township couldn’t support the building’s water needs in the event of a fire. He designed a 44,000-gallon cistern that stretches under the site’s parking lot and connects directly to the building’s basement fire pump system.
A new phase begins
With Phase I complete and employees settled into their new offices, Chris is preparing for the combined Phase II and III construction this spring and summer. The old trailers are gone, and the next phase of work includes tearing down the 1960s shop, recycling the original concrete foundation, and expanding the new pre-engineered steel shop by 100 feet.
The final single-story shop will be 200 feet deep—long enough to fit two tractor-trailers back-to-back. Service pits will be installed in the floor so mechanics can work beneath the trucks without a lift. When not in use, the pits will be raised flush with the floor. The expanded roof will also be configured to accommodate future solar panel installation.
While DK Builder is managing the pre-engineered metal building portions of the project, Chris’s design of the two-story main office is ready to be expanded alongside the shop with additional space for offices, storage, and conference rooms. He’s also responsible for the design of the shop’s foundation.
“With a rigid frame like that, the ends generate a lot of thrust and want to kick out,” Chris says. “So, we’re designing fairly large foundations to resist that force.”
Room to expand
One of Chris’s biggest considerations was designing with future expansion in mind. H.R. Ewell wanted the option to add a third story to the front office if the team grows beyond the new headquarters. Chris created a schematic design for the future floor, with approximate locations for shear walls and moment frames—structural elements that resist lateral forces, including severe wind and earthquake loads.
“The pieces and parts of the structure all have the capacity to support that next component,” Chris says. “There’s a general layout in mind.”
Instead of a standard metal roof deck, Chris designed a concrete deck that can one day serve as the third-story floor. At the tops of the structural columns, oversized steel plates are already embedded—ready for future columns to be attached.
Much of Chris’s work is now concealed behind finished drywall and stone veneer. Even the concrete roof deck is covered by trusses and sloping rubber membrane roofing to direct rain and snow runoff. Still, the structure is there, ready and waiting for future growth.
Genuine care and mentorship
The H.R. Ewell headquarters is far from Chris’s first project with C.S. Davidson. A 2016 graduate of Geneva College with a degree in civil engineering, he began his career at C.S. Davidson right out of college, starting on the bridge team.
The Lancaster native was drawn to C.S. Davidson for its strong reputation, supportive culture, and the opportunity to work on meaningful projects that serve the community where he grew up.
“You could tell people cared about you. You weren’t just a number, and it wasn’t just a money-making machine. There was genuine care,” Chris says. “I wasn’t really interested in working for a 6,000-person firm. As a young engineer, I wanted to be somewhere I could actually have mentorship.”genuine care,” Chris says. “I wasn’t really interested in working for a 6,000-person firm. As a young engineer, I wanted to be somewhere I could actually have mentorship.”