CleanSpace, a Pennsylvania-based integrated design-build firm, has launched ColdSpace, a dedicated division targeting the design and construction of cold storage and temperature-controlled facilities across food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and industrial manufacturing sectors.
The division enters a cold storage construction market that has faced sustained capacity pressure as e-commerce grocery, meal-kit distribution, and foodservice supply chains have demanded faster facility development with tighter temperature tolerances. Rather than requiring operators to coordinate separate contractors for refrigeration, racking, automation, and building shell, ColdSpace consolidates all of those systems under a single contract and a single point of accountability.
What the Division Covers
ColdSpace's scope spans refrigerated processing spaces and walk-in coolers at the smaller end to high-cube freezer warehouses and multi-temperature distribution facilities. The division bundles building construction, refrigeration engineering, racking and storage configuration, material-flow automation, controls integration, and facility management software — disciplines that are typically procured separately in conventional cold storage projects, often creating coordination gaps that inflate cost and extend schedules.
The integrated model mirrors CleanSpace's established approach in cleanroom and dry-room construction, where the firm has built out planning, engineering, U.S. manufacturing, construction, qualification, and ongoing support capabilities under one platform. ColdSpace extends that methodology into adjacent temperature-controlled markets where operational reliability is equally non-negotiable.
Leadership Hires Signal Growth Intent
To seed the new division, CleanSpace has appointed Michael O'Neill as Director of Sales, National, and Michelle Grojean as Director of Marketing. The two hires are tasked with establishing ColdSpace's market presence, developing customer pipelines, and managing early business development as the division ramps.
For food and beverage manufacturers and distributors, the single-source model carries specific appeal: cold chain infrastructure failures — whether from mismatched refrigeration capacity, racking that impedes airflow, or controls that cannot communicate with warehouse management systems — carry direct product-loss and compliance consequences. Bringing those engineering disciplines under one contract reduces the risk that system interfaces are left underspecified or resolved in the field at cost.
The broader cold storage construction pipeline remains active. Demand for temperature-controlled warehousing has expanded with the growth of fresh and frozen direct-to-consumer channels, and food and beverage operators are under increasing pressure from food safety regulations governing cold chain documentation and traceability. CleanSpace's entry positions ColdSpace to compete for greenfield builds as well as facility expansions and retrofits requiring refrigeration system replacement alongside structural work.
CleanSpace has not disclosed revenue targets or a project backlog figure for the ColdSpace division at launch.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
