Ford Meter Box Foundry

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Building Morale and Improving Upon Legacy in the Wabash Community

Ford Meter Box is expanding its current operations with a new 290,000-square-foot foundry building expected to be complete in 2026. This project allows them to significantly increase production levels, improve employee safety and morale, address current layout and maintenance challenges, and continue supporting their local community of Wabash, Indiana.

Ford Meter Box is a family-owned manufacturer of underground waterworks products and brass fittings and has been operating in Wabash for over 125 years. Their current facility has been expanded over the years as the company grew, which resulted in efficiency and safety issues for the employees.

Built for the Future

When it came time for an update it meant a multi-year modernization effort with a significant financial investment. The result is a large new greenfield development, including:

• A comprehensive foundry space that houses their casting, blasting and machining needs all in one location.
• Natural light through low-maintenance translucent panels in place of traditional glass windows.
• Egress stairs instead of ladders wherever possible – a big improvement to employee safety.
• Highly visible, clearly designated and physically separated lanes for forklift and foot traffic to avoid collisions.
• Six full production lines and the additional infrastructure to prepare for the company’s future expansion.
• Two 100-foot tall towers, each housing 2 million pounds of equipment on multi-story platforms – an engineering feat.

Good communication and clever timing accelerated the build. Ford Meter Box approved a phased construction document issuance, where the project was designed and bid over several separate drawing packages. The owner and design team coordinated locations for all foundry equipment first, allowing underground utilities to be run and foundations to begin before the Core and Shell package drawings were finalized.  

Our shared values in safety and quality of work resulted in a unique camaraderie between the owner and the design teams. Having the same goals aligned the teams well from the start, and the teams involved could often be found laughing through their problem-solving.

Ford Meter Box is future-ready.

The building is on schedule to be enclosed by the end of 2024.  The design process kicked off in May 2023, kicking off a quick timeline for all involved.  The phased construction schedule now allows the building to be enclosed first, with the interior spaces to be built out in 2025. Ford Meter Box will seamlessly expand its production into the new space – closing out the largest project in its history –  in October 2026.