Both Civil and Structural services were provided by PUNCH Consulting Engineers.  The original scheme design for the distribution centre was subject to rigorous value engineering exercises of which PUNCH were the lead consultants. These value engineering exercises included trips throughout Europe to review similar distribution centres and the varying construction methods and structural solutions adopted for each. Following this value engineering exercise the most economic solution based on current local economics was chosen and presented to the client.

Tesco Ireland is one of the largest grocery retailers in Ireland and is continually expanding their presence around the country.  The Tesco dry goods distribution centre at Donabate in County Dublin is one of the largest in Europe with a building foot print of 740,000ft2 (125m x 545m). The distribution centre is pivotal in the day to day distributions of Tesco Ireland to their numerous country wide stores.

As part of the enabling works for the site, a cut and fill exercise was required that involved the movement of 200,000m3 of site material and resulted in areas of the site being filled by up to 6m. To reduce differential settlement of the floor slab the areas of fill were surcharged to remove the majority of the post construction embankment settlement and subsequently reduce the expected differential settlement to acceptable limits.  Other major infrastructure works included the construction of 2 new roundabouts and the laying of a new 800mm diameter potable water main trunk sewer on the public road. An onsite wastewater treatment plant was also constructed and incorporated a 7,000m3 attenuation pond.