Epstein's Top 100 Projects: #15: Polimex-Cekop

Project #15 in our Centennial Year celebration of our Top 100 Projects in our history is the reason that Epstein has an office in Poland for 50 years. In 1972, Epstein was awarded a $8.5M DesignBuild contract to design, build and equip food processing and freezer storage plants in Legnica and Lagisza, Poland for Polimex-Cekop, the then Communist Polish Government’s import and export corporation.

As an interesting side-note, the contract negotiations, discussions that lasted months, were held in Poland and multiple languages were used - English, Polish and French, a language that our client and both Raymond and Sidney Epstein spoke fluently.

This contract with Polimex-Cekop was the first DesignBuild contract awarded to an American company for facilities in Communist Poland and were one of the first for an American built plant anywhere in Eastern Europe.

The plant in Legnica was 140,000 square feet and featured a 20,000 square foot space for the processing of spinach, peas and beans. The Lagisza facility was 120,000 square feet and featured 100,000 square feet of freezer space.

Construction on these two plants began in May of ’72 and was completed a year later.

To support our DesignBuild efforts for this project, Epstein opened an office in Warsaw, Poland, an office that is now celebrating its 50^th year in existence and one that has seen us play a significant role in the decades since in not only helping feed Poles with new food plants across the country but we’ve also helped shape the skyline of Warsaw with a number of new office and residential towers.

The design work on these plants also had an international flair as our Chicago, Paris and Polish offices all collaborated on the development of the construction documents for this truly groundbreaking assignment for the Epstein organization.