The History of Tindall

Humble Beginnings

On April 29, 1963, our founder, Mr. Lowndes, purchased Tindall Concrete Pipe, a small manufacturer of precast pipe products in Spartanburg. At the time, the Tindall team included fewer than 10 employees, including Mr. Lowndes himself.

Moving to Fairforest

In 1966, Tindall’s plant relocated to the Fairforest location, where our South Carolina Division and Corporate Headquarters continue to operate today. During this time, the plant also expanded to include additional utility products, including precast concrete manholes. By 1967, we had acquired our first prestressed beds and begun production of prestressed concrete components. During the same year, Tindall Concrete Pipe was renamed Tindall Concrete Products to better reflect our growing capabilities.

Tindall Concrete GA

Over the next two decades, the Tindall team’s reputation for delivering custom precast, prestressed solutions grew exponentially. By the mid-80s, we were already exploring the idea of a Virginia expansion when an opportunity to acquire two facilities in Georgia presented itself. In 1986, we opened our second operation, Tindall Concrete GA, with two plants, one in Jonesboro and one in Conley.

Tindall Concrete VA

Just two years later, we followed through with our original plans for expansion by opening Tindall Concrete Virginia in Petersburg. Now equipped with teams in three states, our team had the in-house expertise and capacity needed to serve a majority of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. These added capabilities gave us the flexibility to begin further exploring additional markets.

Tindall Concrete MS

It wasn’t long before we set our sights on expanding west to better serve our growing customer base in the Gulf Coast region. In 1993, Tindall Concrete Mississippi joined the growing Tindall family as our newest prestressed manufacturing facility.

Becoming Tindall Corporation

Now, with five prestressed manufacturing facilities and a dramatically expanded utility team at our South Carolina location, we brought all of the locations under a new name, Tindall Corporation. With the utility team now formally recognized as its own Division, we were well-equipped to serve practically any construction market with highly engineered precast solutions.

Hurricane Katrina

Disaster struck in 2005 as Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. Our Biloxi location sustained considerable damage during the event as a 35-foot storm surge ravaged the facility. When our team returned to the site, they found the plant littered with casino barges, debris, and nearly 50 boats. With the support of the entire Tindall family and the surrounding community, the location was back up and running at full capacity in just a few months.

Relocating to Moss Point, MS

In 2008, we relocated our Biloxi manufacturing facility to higher ground in Moss Point, Mississippi. Located on a 100-acre site, our new Mississippi Division facility featured under-roof manufacturing, a batch plant, and a cutting-edge automatic concrete delivery system which provided more capacity, offered greater product capabilities, and enabled our Mississippi team to expand into new markets.

The Texas Division

While our Moss Point location was getting up and running in Mississippi, we were also undergoing our fifth expansion, this time in San Antonio, Texas. With the opening of our Texas Division, Tindall’s footprint now covered the Mid-Atlantic, Southeastern, and South-Central U.S. This additional capacity meant our facilities could work together to take on larger, more complex projects than ever before.

Fire at the Corporate Office

In January of 2019, a fire spread through the second floor of our corporate office building in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Thanks to an incredibly swift, multi-agency response by local fire departments, the blaze was extinguished in just fifteen minutes. Though the fire was contained to the second story, roughly 20 offices sustained significant damage and our corporate engineering team was temporarily displaced. However, thanks to the resiliency of the structure’s precast concrete construction, the structure itself remained unharmed.

Corporate Engineering Office

Prior to the corporate office fire, we were already planning to relocate our Spartanburg engineering team to a new corporate engineering office building in Duncan, South Carolina. The new facility was designed to support more than 50 employees, providing a unique space for our rapidly growing team to design and collaborate. With our Spartanburg engineers currently displaced by the fire, we accelerated the relocation, and in March 2019, the 10,000-square-foot facility was opened.

Introducing T-SLAB^®

In 2020, we took a major step forward in the world of precast innovation by unveiling a cutting-edge precast floor system — the Tindall Superior Lightweight All-Purpose Beam (T-SLAB^®). Leveraging Roman arch design principles and multiple concrete types, this groundbreaking system would provide a stronger, lighter, and more versatile slab. T-SLAB paved the way for future total precast designs, mid- to high-rise construction, and new customization opportunities.

A New Age for Infrastructure

By the late 2010s, demand for custom precast utility solutions had skyrocketed. To accommodate the volume of custom components being produced, we began planning and designing a new, state-of-the-art Infrastructure Manufacturing Facility. We first announced the expansion in 2020, and in 2021, the new facility was opened. Featuring cutting-edge automation, the Infrastructure Manufacturing Facility dramatically increased our Utility Division’s capacity, product capabilities, and opportunities for further innovation.

The Bifurcation

After 59 years of growth and innovation, we officially became two distinct business groups in 2022: Tindall Building Systems, focused on delivering the next generation of precast, prestressed concrete structures, and Tindall Infrastructure, dedicated to delivering high-performance, fully customized utility solutions. This milestone not only offered more opportunities for focused growth, but also highlighted that we’re more than a provider of precast concrete products — we’re industry leaders who are developing cutting-edge building systems and infrastructure solutions.

T-SLAB^® Expansion

With total precast construction on the rise, we expanded our ability to produce T-SLAB with two additional production lines at our Virginia and Mississippi manufacturing facilities. While our South Carolina Division had been supplying T-SLAB to our other locations since 2020, these expansions significantly boosted our team’s ability to deliver total precast solutions quickly and cost-competitively.

Our 60th Anniversary

That brings us to today. In 2023, we’re celebrating our 60^th anniversary by highlighting some of the most influential people, projects, and milestones from the last six decades. Throughout the year, we’ll be sharing conversations with leadership, profiles of iconic structures, and quotes from members of the Tindall family. For us, this is an opportunity to reflect on how we got here, what makes us who we are, and what it means to be Engineered to Serve.