The Severnoye Domodedovo logistics industrial park currently under construction 11 kilometers outside the Moscow Automobile Ring Road (MKAD) in Moscow, Russia, is said to be the largest such complex in Europe. Scheduled for completion in 2008, the 650 acre site will contain over 1,000,000 square meters of Class A warehouse space housed in a total of 16 buildings. One way to understand the enormous size of this project is to picture the more than 100 football fields that could be housed within the complex. The project is one of several large industrial complexes under development in Russia by Eurasia Logistics as part of their strategy to address the critical shortage of high-quality warehouse space in the country.

During Phase I of this massive project General Contractor Mega-Stroy initially hired five flooring sub-contractors to informally compete in placing and finishing the concrete floors for the first 374,000 square meters. In the competition for speed and quality, flooring sub-contractor Romex far exceeded the completion rate of the others due to the use of their Somero SXP Laser Screed and their skilled workforce. Whereas the other four sub-contractors each completed 700 square meters of concrete floor by hand per shift, Romex completed from 1,600 to 3,300 square meters per shift by itself with the use of the SXP 14. The 14-foot screed head on the SXP Laser Screed includes a plough and auger that cuts the concrete to level with laser-guidance controlling the grade 10-times per second, and then compacts it with a vibrating beam. As specialists in the production and installation of industrial flooring, Romex has several teams of trained operators of Somero's line of laser-guided large and small machines, including the CopperHead XD, PowerRake and Topping Spreader.

"Our crew was able to complete 95,000 square meters of high-tolerance concrete floors with an average output of 3,000 square meters per day," said Romex general director Vladislav Kurakin. "The speed and quality of the floors we produced with the SXP Laser Screed determined our selection as the sub-contractor for Phase II."

Romex has a contract to complete 160,000 square meters of nominally reinforced slab-on-grade concrete floors for three buildings of 80,000, 50,000 and 30,000 square meters each in Phase II. They are the lead contenders for a contract to pour an additional 300,000 square meters for Phase III. The floors for Phase III will be slab-on-grade with one layer mesh reinforced. Kurakin notes that the quality of the floors his crew can achieve with the SXP will be FM2 or FM2 special, an excellent category for a speculative building where VNA racking locations are unknown at the time of construction.

"If all goes as planned, we will complete the job within three or four months at a rate of 3,000 square meters per day," said Kurakin. "I know that the floors produced with the Laser Screed are not only done faster, but with a consistent high quality not affected by worker fatigue."