August 16, 2021

Project no. 88 in our Top 100 Projects countdown is the Vienna Sausage food processing plant, located at 2501 N. Damen in Chicago.

Completed in 1973, this facility consolidated four separate Vienna plants into one to produce corned beef, smoked and cooked meats, hot dogs, and sausage. The new facility featured a unique design for an industrial processing plant; instead of utilizing pre-cast concrete or ribbed metal, it was built of brick and colored mortar. This was done in order to achieve the client's goal that the building serve as not only a world-class, efficient and easily-maintained meat processing plant, but also become Vienna’s "beautiful home" as well. In fact, the design was considered so distinctive for the time that the Society of American Registered Architects awarded the plant a Gold Medal for Architectural Excellence at their annual conference.

In addition to Vienna’s distinguished design, Epstein’s architects and engineers were also charged with controlling the pollution output for the plant. Therefore, this plant featured an industrial waste water treatment system, designed by our civil engineering group, as well as a cutting-edge energy saving scrubbing system for the smokehouses to reduce air pollution.

This Vienna facility was completed nearly 50 years after our first project with Vienna, a partnership that included multiple projects throughout Chicagoland and a modernist manufacturing facility in Vernon, California.

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