Government

Patrick SFB Commissary

The Patrick Space Force Base Commissary is a 103,848-square-foot grocery store operated by the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) in Florida, and its architectural and refrigeration upgrade has been a multi-year project for The Jenkins Group. The firm began design in August 2018 under a DeCA design task order, starting with an assessment of the whole building: architecture, plumbing, fire protection, mechanical, and electrical systems and finishes. The scope includes product refrigeration improvements and a new standard DeCA décor for the sales area, and the reworked scope adds structural repairs. DeCA's requirements changed along the way, with a code and criteria review in 2022 and a scope revision in early 2024 that dropped the front parking lot work, kept the HVAC units replaced in 2021, and left the checkout configuration in place. The firm revised the design documents as those changes came in, and design was complete in September 2024.

Refrigeration drives this design. After a May 2024 selection meeting, the team chose CO2 refrigeration for both the sales-area cases and the walk-in coolers and freezers. The water-based micro-distributed alternative would have used about 30 percent more electrical energy and limited the refrigerant charge on each condenser. The team also weighed ways to protect the CO2 system during a power failure, including a dedicated emergency generator. The Jenkins Group leads the design as architect, with McCoy and Howard Consulting Engineers, Inc. for mechanical, plumbing, electrical, fire protection, and refrigeration engineering and Martin, White & Griffis Structural Engineers for structure. DeCA, with contracting assistance from the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), bid the project in January 2026. The firm helped review contractor proposals and now provides construction administration, including full-time inspection and submittal review.

A commissary is a grocery store first — the engineering only works if the shopper never notices it.