J Coffey Construction, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, was awarded the concrete and civils & groundworks packages for Facebook’s state-of-the-art new Data Centre in Clonee, County Meath. We caught up with founder / MD James Coffey to find out more about this landmark contract and the ongoing success of the J Coffey Group.
In July, 2015, Facebook was granted planning permission for a €200 million data centre at Clonee, in County Meath. Located on a landscaped 220-acre site, the futuristic campus would be developed in two phases over ten years.
Nine months later, it was announced that construction had commenced. The facility – Facebook’s first in Ireland and second in Europe – will be one of the most-advanced and energy-efficient data centres in the world thanks to its cutting-edge technology and the use of 100% renewable wind energy. It will become a crucial part of the infrastructure that helps Facebook connect billions of people around the world.
The Civils and Groundworks Package (8000) and the Concrete Package (2400) were awarded to main contractor MACE and subcontracted to J Coffey Construction.
Valued at €44.5m, this contract comprised the construction of all site infrastructure; road paved works of 45,000m²; hard landscaping pavements of 25,000m2; bulk excavation quantities of approximately 450,000m³ of excavations and 300,000m3 of fill; associated services including foul surface drainage systems, attenuation ponds, tanks, water mains and rising mains, and 190km of ducting including fibre, security, public lighting, LV and MV ducting; landscaping works; foot bridges and stream culverts; concrete foundations, footings and precast units to the Data Centre; and the placement of 33,000m3 of concrete, a lot of which was finished floor placed to a very high tolerance by ConFloor in Northern Ireland.
James was happy to be able to enlist the services of a fellow Westmeath man, Shay Murtagh of Shay Murtagh Precast, to supply all the precast concrete for the project.
J Coffey Construction Ltd. was established in the UK by Ringtown, County Westmeath native James Coffey in 1991 and the fact that they were contracted to work on the prestigious Facebook Data Centre in Clonee speaks volumes for the high esteem in which the company is held as a construction partner.
“It’s a sizeable contract and one of the bigger ones we’ve been awarded in the last few years,” notes James. “We were responsible for all the civil and concrete works on site and brought in Roadbridge as a subcontractor to work alongside our management team and logistics people. The work started on site in February / March, 2016 and the first phase will be finished in September / October.
“We don’t know yet if we’ll be involved in the second phase but we certainly hope to be involved in more new opportunities in Ireland in the coming years.”
J Coffey Group employs up to 700 staff directly between its four divisions, with turnover of approximately €100m per annum between its UK and Ireland operations. The ongoing success of the Group is based upon a reputation for the highest quality of project delivery whilst adopting a proactive and collaborative working approach, reflected in the high level of repeat business achieved and a client list that includes many of the UK and Ireland’s top contractors.
Synonymous with major works at Battersea Power Station and Campden Lock in recent years, J Coffey Construction is firmly established as a leading contractor, standing toe-to-toe with all the major players and tendering for all the bigger projects in the Greater London / South East region and beyond.
“We employ good people and we work hard,” says James when asked about the key to his company’s outstanding success. “We give an outstanding service and we have a very good team of people working for us. A lot of our staff have been with us for decades and we have a number of very experienced and qualified personnel, which enables us to delegate responsibilities.”
J Coffey Construction is very much a family operation with sons Jamie and Shane and daughter Ashling involved. James is joined in the running of the business by fellow directors and shareholders Tom Mitchell (from Clifden, Galway) and Eddie Barrett (a second-generation Irishman from London).
The J Coffey Construction Main Contract Division successfully delivers both traditional and Design and Build projects ranging from £500,000 to £10m within the commercial, healthcare, education, residential, retail, industrial, leisure and amenities sectors, embracing innovative technologies and processes such as BIM, and through value engineering fulfilling clients’ aspirations to achieve project budgets without compromising on quality.
They have a diverse range of experience across all sectors and a proven track record. Many projects emanate from repeat business from clients and consultants, who appreciate their flexibility and intuitive approach to getting the job done.
J Coffey Construction are committed to delivering high-quality projects through adopting a professional hands-on management approach by their directors, whose day-to-day involvement in all projects allows them to anticipate issues so that immediate decisions can be taken to avoid potential delays, ensuring that client expectations are met, and where possible, exceeded.
J.Coffey Construction has been involved in the redevelopment of the iconic Battersea Power Station project in South London for the past number of years. The works are based within the existing brickwork wash towers and their undertaking is to construct the new structure around the existing steel and brickwork structure. Therefore, the works involve a significant amount of interaction between new and existing structure.
Another current project is to construct four separate concrete frames with associated substructure works in Camden village. The most challenging element of these works is the construction of three basements within 5 metres of busy, live rail viaducts. The most significant is the basement to block ‘C’ which has a footprint of 3500m2 and descends 15m below the newly-constructed groundfloor slab. This will be constructed using a “top down” methodology to ensure that the Network Rail viaducts are supported at all times.
J Coffey Group is a collection of specialist building companies operating out of Harrow, Middlesex in the UK and committed to delivering the highest possible quality of service to customers across its four main divisions: construction, contracting, rail and plant. The group offers a comprehensive construction service throughout London and the south east of England through four separate trading divisions: J Coffey Construction, Main Contracting Division, J Coffey Rail and J Coffey Plant.
J Coffey Construction specialises in structural alterations, civil engineering, substructure, concrete works and builder’s works. The quality of J Coffey Construction’s service delivery and robust procedures have been validated by BM Trada, a UKAS-accredited organisation, for ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001. They are also accredited by CHAS, SAFEcontractor, constructionline, NHBC and Achilles.
J Coffey Construction Ltd.,
93-95 Greenford Road,
Harrow,
Middlesex,
HA1 3QF.
Tel: 0208 426 4944
Fax: 0208 426 4966
Email: [email protected]
Web: jcoffey.co.uk
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, September 2017, Vol 3 No 8
