A subscription may be required to read full article in San Diego Business Journal by reporter Ray Huard.

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SAN DIEGO COUNTY – Balfour Beatty US is about halfway through building a $84.2 million new mess hall at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) capable of serving 20,000 meals a day.

At 100,000 square feet, the one-story building will be the Defense Department’s largest mess hall, replacing an existing mess hall of about 64,000 square feet, according to Balfour Beatty.

“It’s just a massive structure to help feed these recruits,” Kanady said. “You walk in, and you’re just floored by the size and magnitude of the space.”

Building the structure required 373 tons of structural steel, 33,000 masonry blocks, 3,600 cubic yards of concrete, 9,000 feet of underground plumbing, more than 25,400 feet of underground electrical conduit, 840 lighting fixtures, and 318 deep pile foundations spanning 24,000 linear feet.

Designed by Michael Baker International, with San Diego offices in Kearny Mesa, MCRD P-315 Mess Hall as it’s known, is due to be finished in fall 2026 and operate for the next 60 years.

The project involved rerouting Guadalcanal Avenue 50 yards to the south because the old road went right though the building site of the new mess hall.

At the heart of the new building is a mess deck of more than 40,000 square feet that can seat 2,000 recruits at a time, Kanady said.

“There’s multiple platoons that go through the building at each meal,” Kanady said. “It’s incredible. The kitchen itself has over 30,000 square feet. It has more than 10,000 square feet of walk-in space – refrigerators and freezers.”

Before Balfour Beatty could even begin work on the new mess hall, a steam plant that served the existing mess hall had to be picked up by a crane and moved to a temporary location, while a new concrete pad could be built and the steam plant moved a second time by crane.

A ground-penetrating radar system was used to locate existing underground utilities and avoid ripping them up accidentally.

Kanady said that building the mess hall was special for him because of the people it serves.