Ferguson Enterprises Ship Hub 

Ferguson Enterprises – the largest supplier of plumbing, HVAC, appliances, lighting, PVF, water and wastewater solutions in the United States – required a new supply ship hub with just-in-time (JIT) inventory control and packing capabilities in Austin, Texas. Michael Baker was there to provide mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) engineering expertise to this project for Method Architecture in support of this critical ship-hub for a national leader in the North American distributor space. The site itself was chosen due to its proximity to the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, as well as its closeness to IH-35, Texas Highways 130 and Texas Highway 71 (all major road transportation arteries within Texas). 

Air-conditioning and heat recovery systems were rigorously designed to meet the needs of a warehouse operating in a region of Texas where temperatures could climb (and often swing wildly) and thus the need to protect the massive quantity of inventory was of critical importance.  

Alongside the need to condition a massive amount of space was a need for engineering requirements to supplement a robust and tech-forward just-in-time (JIT) warehouse facility with conveyors, automated packaging and dedicated zones for shipping, receiving and processing of returns/credits for the hundreds of thousands of products distributed by Ferguson. The facility was honored as a finalist in the Austin Business Journal’s 2025 Commercial Real Estate Awards.