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Carpenters tilt-up healthy home for Nordic Naturals Nordic Naturals’ new facility in Watsonville is designed to resemble a Norwegian fishing community. The vibrant red, subdued green and ochre buildings stand out against a royal sky. Beyond the parking lot, tall grass bends in the late-spring breeze. For an assembly and shipping warehouse, the whole place looks… well, pretty darn wholesome. And it should. Carpenters are building this new home for Nordic Naturals, which manufactures and sells pharmaceutical-grade Omega-3 fish oil supplements. As a fitting habitat for the company’s healthy products, Nordic’s owner Joar Opheim and Santa Cruz-based designer Vivian Gunnerengen—both from Norway—envisioned a modern take on a far-northern fishing town… perched on a hilltop in Watsonville, California. "The traditional colors and the shapes, the gables, all of it—we envisioned a traditional coastal Norwegian village,"Gunnerengen says. "It’s not flashy, but it feels good."  Norwegian fishing community. Surprising as the transplanted look may sound, it works—and the "feel good"part is more than skin deep. "This project is built to a LEED gold rating,"says Tom Landess, Local 605, superintendent for general contractor Ausonio. He’s referring to the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design internationally recognized rating system for green buildings. "Many of the materials are recycled, and all of the concrete is recycled." For this 66,000-square-foot complex, with its concrete tilt-up construction, that’s a significant commitment. It also reflects Nordic Naturals’ philosophy. The company’s website includes a mission to "initiate standards of excellence and integrity that apply not only to our product line, but to all of our business practices worldwide.” For Landess, who’s been with Castroville-based Ausonio Inc. for 32 years, it’s his tenth tilt-up building, but he appreciated the small additions, the board-and-batten look on the exterior, for example.  Dennis Plumley, Local 605, has been with Ceilings Unlimited for about 10 months, working pretty steadily. He started as a drywaller in Oklahoma almost 30 years ago, but moved to California in 1990. Inside the 44,000-square-foot warehouse, the look is more Home Depot than fishing village, while the 22,000-square-foot office space is architecturally spare and environmentally sound with colored concrete floors polished to a marble shine and DIRTT walls. DIRTT, short for "Doing It Right This Time,"is a Canadian company that makes pre-engineered and manufactured interior walls, floors and power solutions—with the goal of saving energy, minimizing waste and reusing materials. The project, which began in July 2009, is nearing completion, with only a acoustic tile installers from Ceilings Unlimited, and cabinet installers from Mission Bell Manufacturing and a couple of carpenters from Ausonio still at work. At its peak last winter, "we had 24 carpenters, 4 apprentices and 4 laborers,"Landess says. "We were racing to put up the trusses and sheeting before the late winter rains set in again." All that hard work paid off, and the reward is visible in every inch of the new Nordic Naturals complex—a beautiful, efficient and ecofriendly fishing village… on a hilltop in Watsonville.  Joel Alvarez, Local 405, has eight years with Mission Bell Manufacturing. Here he’s installing cabinets in the warehouse break-room.  Superintendent Tom Landess, Local 605, has been with Ausonio Inc. for 32 years, and in the UBC for 31.  Chi Ngo, Local 713, works for subcontractor Ceilings Unlimited. He’s been in the union about 16 years.  Shades of Home Depot—the 44,000 feet of warehouse space awaits product.  Felipe Quintana, Local 505, is a 4th period apprentice working with Ausonio. "After my kids go to sleep at night, I stay up studying." Quintana worked as an industrial carpenter at Indalex in Watsonville for 11 years, and when the plant closed, he moved into the carpenter apprentice program.
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