Galena Park, Texas American Plant Food Corporation

For more than 50 years, APF has been the leader in promoting the use of sulfur in the sulfate form as an essential plant nutrient. The company currently operates 11 dry blending locations in Texas and markets thousands of tons of ammonium sulfate (AMS) annually in the United States, Canada, and Central and South America.

What our Client Needed

APF needed an additional compactor building for their ammonium sulfate manufacturing facility in Galena. The 124’ x 80’ existing building wasn’t enough to keep up with customer demand.

What Stueve Designed and Built

Stueve built a new, 130’ x 100’ building adjacent to the existing one. Russ Buscher, Vice President of Engineering at Stueve, says the project included a number of unique challenges, including wind, the corrosive nature of AMS and the size of the equipment needed to manufacture it.

“Because ammonium sulfate is so corrosive, we used only engineered lumber with stainless steel connectors,” Buscher says. “All the concrete was mixed to be compatible with AMS. Because the equipment was so large, it was installed first, and the building was constructed around it.”

It was also a very tight site – the new building was placed right next to the existing one. Galena Park is a coastal area on the east side of Houston, and another challenge was the wind, Buscher says. “The building is 70’ tall, so it had to be designed for the heavy wind loads,” he says.