The Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, N.Y., was once the largest and most productive sugar refinery in the world.

It was built in 1856 and, by the 1980s, was producing 4 million pounds of sugar every day. That all came to an end in 2004, when the factory shut down and became an abandoned piece of Big Apple history.

Fast forward to 2018, and a developer came in with a plan to transform the site of the Domino Sugar Factory, turning the iconic refinery and its surrounding landscape into a 3 million-square-foot mega-development complete with an 11-acre park and waterfront esplanade.

Construction got underway that year, and by the fall of 2018, the refinery itself was not yet sealed tight. Winter was fast approaching, and the on-site team was going to need a temporary solution to supply the structure with heat — not just to ensure a comfortable work environment for construction crews, but also to keep critical materials from freezing. That’s when Sunbelt Rentals stepped in with a solution.

We put forth a plan that involved the use of temporary heaters that could be moved around to different floors as the work on the site progressed. We brought in two 500K Indirect Diesel Heaters and 2 400k Indirect Diesel Heaters with flu stacks and caps, along with 16 pieces of high-temp supply duct. By January, all four units were up and running on the job site, just in time to protect the project from the brutal cold of a New York City winter.

In the end, the flexibility of our solution and the availability of our units at a critical time in the construction process resonated with the customer and kept our equipment on site as the job progressed. Projects as large as the one taking shape at the Domino Sugar Factory site take time, and any unexpected delays impact not just the developers and the construction teams, but the community that development will serve. We were proud to do our part to keep things moving, no matter what.