Willow Brook expands beneath Earth's surface

The possibilities are increasing beneath the city of Springfield as Springfield Underground grows its business in new ways.
Willow Brook Foods, which already has a storage and distribution facility in the underground complex, is expanding into vacant space adjacent to its current location.
Tom Collins, Willow Brook’s director of marketing, said the new space corresponds with new capabilities for the company.
“The expansion space is an enclosed facility next door to the distribution center where we’ll actually be processing and slicing turkey and ham,” Collins said. “It’s a brand-new capability for us. We don’t currently do any pre-sliced product, so this was an opportunity. We knew we were going to need to do it in a separate facility from our current processing facilities because of food safety measures that we wanted to take.”
The new facility will be the second processing plant in Springfield Underground, following Dairy Concepts. Other tenants use the space for distribution or storage.
Willow Brook already has begun receiving equipment to be housed in the 25,000-square-foot expansion facility, which should be ready by the end of March. The cost of the project is estimated to be about $1.3 million.
Willow Brook is one of nine tenants that inhabit the 1.9 million-square-foot Springfield Underground complex. Only one building, covering about 70,000 square feet, is not currently in use, according to Springfield Underground’s Chief Operating Officer John Griesemer, who also said the company owns approximately 550 acres, leaving more room to grow in the future.
“We are still actively mining,” Griesemer said. “We remove about 800,000 tons of rock per year, and that’s a large part of our business. The 1.9 million (square feet) is leasable square footage, and that’s just building footprint, so that doesn’t include parking and things like that.”
The underground facility signed its first tenant – Kraft Foods, then called National Dairy Products – in 1960.
The last company to move into Springfield Underground was EDCO-The Document People, which in early 2004 opened SecureStore, its 92,000-square-foot storage facility. The nine tenants are Willow Brook, EDCO, Kraft Foods, Buske Lines, Graybar Electric Co., Dairy Farmers of America, Dairy Concepts, Aaron’s Automotive and SpringNet, a subsidiary of City Utilities.
SpringNet also is expanding, adding global health care services company McKesson Corp. to its list of clients. Jeff Morrissey, systems manager of McKesson’s Springfield operation, which produces and maintains home health care software, said working with SpringNet makes sense for his company.
“They collocate our data center for us, so we store our servers down in their facility,” he said. “It’s a full-feature data facility. Everything’s got redundant power, high security, fire suppression systems, plus it’s under 85 feet of limestone.”
Dan Brewer, a SpringNet sales engineer, said the company’s safety and security is a key selling point for the company.
“We provide space, power, environmental factors, and security for customers to collocate their own servers and data equipment in,” he said. “We’re a secure underground data facility very unique to this area. We offer 100 percent uptime on environmentals – heating, lighting, those sorts of things.”
Brewer also said the unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous, Ozarks weather makes SpringNet’s location attractive.
“Tornadoes can come through and tear your building up, and business continuity is a very important thing in this day and age,” he said. “With this facility we can sustain an F-5 (tornado) above the ground and not affect our facility underneath. That’s one of the main selling points of (our location).”
SpringNet currently serves 60 customers in its 56,500-square-foot underground facility. It also carries approximately 175 business contracts for broadband Internet service.
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