BTD in Detroit Lakes is manufacturing an expansion plan that’ll stretch its facility another 90,000 square feet.
The metalwork fabrication business is busy putting the footings in for a new warehouse that will go adjacent to its 1111 13th Avenue location.
Construction on the $3.5 million project will continue throughout the winter and is expected to wrap up sometime between March and April when the second quarter begins.
The new facility will help take the place of a BTD warehouse in Otsego, Minn. that the company is shutting down.
Merchandise from there will be shifted to the growing Detroit Lakes site, as well as a second site in Lakeville, Minn.
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“It will allow us to take the plant in DL and really lay it out the way we want it to improve the flow of business,” said BTD President Paul Gintner, who says streamlining the business to just two locations will make everything simpler for both customers and employees.
And while he says the expansion isn’t expected to create jobs, he does expect the new layout and space to allow for increase efficiency for the growing company.
According to Gintner, since the end of the recession in 2009, business has increased at roughly 15 percent per year at BTD.
However, says the company’s big struggle is to find qualified employees to meet the growing demands of the business, as they run approximately 20 to 30 employees short in Detroit Lakes.
An easier flowing facility site will mean the 420-450 employees BTD does have will have the ability to be more productive.
The new building is being built to the south of its main building, where en employee parking lot once was.
When it’s completed, the additional space will nearly double that site to 200,000 square feet.
For safety reasons, employee traffic will be re-routed away from 13th Avenue where truck traffic is heavier, over to Fortune Avenue and Peter Street.
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Since those two gravel roads will be more heavily used by employees, BTD has put a request into the city to pave Peter Street and Fortune Avenue from the intersection of Randolph Road and Peter Street to the north side of Fortune Avenue.
They have also requested the city put in improved street lighting there as well.
BTD started up in 1979, coming into Detroit Lakes in 1980.
“It was basically a little start-up company that has just experienced phenomenal growth,” said Gintner, who says throughout that growth, they’ve just managed to sort of “bolt things together” to make the expansions work.
This new project is expected to give company leaders a chance to step back and create the space they want, how they want it.
“We’ve grown with all the great customers we have, but this will simplify our model in Minnesota,” said Gintner.
