1600 Roe Street

The Peelle Co. provides freight doors for adaptive reuse of Dallas, Texas, warehouse.

The elevator industry accommodates unique applications of every kind, including freight. Door and door operators are critical components to these applications. During The Peelle Co.’s 119-year history, it has accommodated low overheads, shallow pits, multiple vertical and slide-up configurations and widths up to 30 ft through 0 in. wide. Peelle was recently tasked with a challenging modernization due to our ability to provide a heavy-duty solution in a demanding application.

1600 Roe Street, or Cedars Commerce Center, is a 1,760,000-ft2 former Sears Roebuck catalog distribution center that had an AGV (automatic guided vehicle) system that could ride the freight elevator. The existing Otis freight doors were modified in the field for the track that runs the AGV into and out of the elevator. These doors needed to be replaced to accommodate mixed-use tenants. Space constraints were a factor, and Peelle set out to ensure that the elevator contractor could perform the modernization with the least amount of field work possible.

Completed in fall 2021 for client LBA, the five-story warehouse now serves as industrial space in an ideal, accessible South Dallas location. Less than a 15-min drive from downtown, the 38-acre site includes 167 dock positions, 73 dock doors and four freight elevators. More than 5,400 gallons of Sherwin-Williams paint were used to give this building new life.

It’s not uncommon for older single-use manufacturing facilities to be sublet to dozens of high-tech, light-duty manufacturing and warehousing tenants, as the high ceilings, loading docks and power grid suit most business needs. Currently, the 1600 Roe freight elevators, one with 16,000-lb capacity and three with a 20,000-lb lifting capacity, are being used to move the various tenants’ goods and business machinery from the loading dock to their individual floors.