CHICAGO—Mortenson Construction has just finished turning an empty warehouse at 6300 W. Howard St. in suburban Niles into a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant for Woodward Inc.'s aerospace components business. Ghafari Associates designed the $90 million project, which consolidated the company's engineering, R&D, production, testing and administrative operations, which had been spread across separate facilities in Niles and nearby Skokie.

Woodward, which designs and manufactures products used by aerospace and energy companies to manage fuel and energy use, was founded in Rockford, IL in 1870. The company, now based in Fort Collins, CO, bought the property, which had what was originally a 366,931 square foot warehouse and production facility, last year from Duke Realty for nearly $24 million, according to Cook County records. The structure was partially demolished and a new, two-story, 100,000 square foot office space was added, resulting in a facility with 334,700 square feet.

“Mortenson worked closely with us to meet our highly aggressive and complicated construction schedule, which was constrained by different lease expirations and the need to minimize any disruption to our clients as we moved 950 employees and operations from six different locations,” says Dale Sylvan, vice president/general manager of Woodward.