Twin Cities Harley Davidson

Blaine, MN | commercial

With goals to create a destination dealership, expand sales and service capacity, and construct a larger building footprint, Twin Cities Harley-Davidson Blaine hired ISG to lead design services at their new facility. ISG provided full services, taking over for Harley-Davidson’s corporate architect at the schematic design phase.

Through the exterior brick, classic orange and black color scheme, and polished concrete floors, this store adds a modern twist to the iconic Harley-Davidson brand. The new facility provides nearly three times as much space as the previous location – an important improvement for stocking higher volumes of merchandise. In order to use the entire building as a branding opportunity, ISG worked with Wells Concrete to locate orange and black exterior bricks.

During design, special consideration had to be given to accommodate the weight of the bikes, especially on the second floor. On average, a Harley-Davidson bike weighs 500 to 1,000 pounds, creating a unique challenge for ISG architects and engineers when designing the second floor and display areas at the Blaine location. Working closely with contractors, ISG crafted a system that now supports a capacity of 75 pounds per square foot.

The service entrance for Twin Cities Harley-Davidson Blaine is on building’s west side, so to combat potential customer discomfort on windy or rainy days, ISG designed the shop space to be longer than the service area. This way, the structure can be used as a shield to protect customers from northwest winds. Challenges continued below ground as a deep city sewer replacement had to be relocated from directly under the future building site to around the building. Coordination for this relocation occurred months ahead of the project, which allowed the team to move the existing ground water table from 5 feet below the surface to 18 feet. All of this was completed while relocating the City sewer and not interrupting service to surrounding areas.

From wetland delineation to consideration of visibility from Highway 65, ISG offered project management, architectural, civil engineering, and electrical engineering services through bidding and construction that resulted in a true destination dealership.

" This was achievable because of the design build team approach ISG and Bauer took early on in the project, which allowed for multiple game plans and scenarios to be talked through prior to any action happening on site."

- Bauer Design Build Project Manager, Branton Smith