Northland Distributing and Manufacturing is completing work on its 30,000-square-foot expansion.
Work on the building is expected to be completed by April, after which the company hopes to add 15 to 20 new employees over the course of the year.
“We were running out of room and wanted to put more control on our product,” owner Keith Horne said.
In a time when many companies are scaling back, canceling projects, and cutting staff, Northland Distributing has taken on a project that not only will expand its business and staff, but has also used mostly local labor and products in the process of constructing the expansion.
“We were breaking records every year,” Horne said. “2008 was the best year we ever had.”
He explained that the company’s success before the recession allowed them to continue expanding when many were shrinking.
The renovation, which Horne said cost more than $2 million, will allow the company to expand not only in space, but also in products and services for its customers.
For example, the company has already started doing light manufacturing for air handlers and unit heaters that were a product of Paukner Metal Products. Northland took over Paukner in November. Horne said that three or four members of the new staff will be working on the Paukner line.
In addition, Northland Distributing needed more storage space for its line of Italian Ecoteck wood pellet stoves. The company imports the stoves for resale in the United States and Canada.
“That is growing slow but sure,” Horne said of the stove business.
The company also needed room to sell plumbing and heating supplies. “We’re very competitive with pricing,” Horne said, adding that they will have options not necessarily available at the big-box retailers.
But Horne noted that the types of jobs that will be available will be for a variety of tasks. He said that some Rainy River Community College programs may provide the right kind of skilled labor.
“It’s been in the works for a long time,” Horne said of the expansion. “It started out smaller and every year we added onto it prior to building. We were only going to do 15,000-20,000 square feet, and we just figured we would do it once and we would do it 30,000 and we would be done with it.”
The construction has been ongoing for 14 months, and Horne said that the planning process for the expansion has been ongoing for about three years.
The company was started as a home-based business by owners Keith and Brenda Horne in 1996. They moved to the Crescent Drive location in 2000, which is where the expansion is currently in its final stages.
Fifteen new offices are now under construction on a partial second floor in the addition, where the sales staff will work. The mezzanine offices will take up approximately 5,000 square feet.
U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar toured the facility during his January trip to International Falls.
“He was very excited with what we’re doing here,” Horne said of the congressman. “He seems to be very genuine for jobs in northern Minnesota. And that’s what we tried to drive home — that Koochiching County is losing population every year, it feels like every day. And we need some help from him to supply or find some funding for businesses to start expanding up here. Otherwise we’re dying up here, slow but sure.”
