Del Conca

Del Conca is a ceramic tile manufacturer based in Italy with a global revenue of $165 million. The company opened a new $50 million facility in Loudon, Tennessee in March 2014 to serve a growing U.S. market. It’s expected to produce 30 million square feet of tile per year and will eventually employ 170 people.

The 315,000-square-foot facility included many wastewater-like structures. It contained six in-ground slurry tanks with cast-in-place lids and two cast-in-place, tight-radius tanks for holding liquid materials. Lithko was also responsible for the press pits, material storage bins and large mat foundations for holding equipment.

There were many challenges, including a tight timeline and a sinkhole under many of the foundations. The floor slabs also required shake-on and liquid hardeners to accommodate the forklifts and loaders to be used in the manufacturing process. Even deciphering the mechanical and shop drawings was difficult; they were all in Italian, with metric measurements. Challenges aside, we worked at an extremely fast pace and stayed on schedule.