Building boom
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM
Is there a truck equipment distributor in the country today that is expanding its facilities as much as the Auto Truck Group?
The company, headquartered near Chicago's O'Hare airport, also has locations in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; and Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado. Each either has had or will receive major facilities upgrades within the next two years.
The biggest is the new headquarters location scheduled to open late this year. Plans call for Auto Truck to move out of its current 75,000-sq-ft location in the fall when a new 105,000-sq-ft building is complete. The facility also will be home for the parts-oriented store that Auto Truck has operated in Aurora, Illinois
But that's just one of the projects. Here are others:
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In Denver, the Auto Truck Group is scheduled to move into a new 40,000-sq-ft home for its Layton Truck Equipment operation in May.
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The Layton Truck Equipment shop in Colorado Springs is shopping for additional property for chassis storage.
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The company's Fort Wayne Fleet Equipment Company recently acquired 18 acres. The extra land initially will provide additional storage and chassis parking, but it also gives the company the ability to build a new shop if and when a new building is needed.
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A new shop for the company's Louisville Truck Equipment operation is scheduled for completion in March 2009.
These projects are simply the most current. Others have been completed in the past few years to help the company keep up with increasing demand for truck equipment installations. Auto Truck has been in business since 1918, but the company has grown substantially in recent years. Most of that growth has come from national fleets.
Its Louisville operation is a good example of the approach the company has taken to fuel that growth. Auto Truck's Louisville Truck Equipment opened in the shadows of Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant in 2003. By having that facility, Auto Truck can easily and efficiently upfit Ford F-Series trucks on a ship-through basis.
“We are here (in Louisville) because we have to be,” says Dennis Jones, vice-president of sales and marketing. “We are here because our customers — major fleets, leasing companies, management companies, and railroads — expect it.”
Headquarters for the Auto Truck Group remains in Bensenville, a suburb of Chicago. But the Louisville location — in operation only since 2003 — has become the company's largest. It upfits 3,000-4,000 trucks per year, more than twice the volume of the Bensenville shop.
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