Cox Roofing relocates to former KADI office

Cox Roofing Co. LLC has relocated its offices to the outskirts of Springfield for a spacing upgrade – just in time to celebrate its upcoming 40th anniversary.

Cox Roofing had outgrown its office at 3221 S. Scenic Ave. and moved to the former location of the KADI radio station offices at 5431 W. Sunshine St., said Ken Mills, Cox Roofing owner and president.

The new office space is 5,000 square feet with a 10,000-square-foot warehouse.

“We moved in the third weekend in October, and we’d owned the building for several months,” Mills said.

Cox Roofing bought the building from Vision Communications Inc., the parent company of KADI. Mills declined to disclose the purchase price. The property has a market value of $408,200, according to Greene County assessor records.

“We had been there for 16 years and decided it was too much space for us,” said R.C. Amer, owner of KADI. “We didn’t do anything with the warehouse.”

The KADI broadcast tower remains on Sunshine on a permanent easement.

KADI moved in July to 1550 E. Battlefield Road, Ste. A, just south of Battlefield Mall.

“It’s much more efficient and modern,” Amer said of the new 3,350-square-foot office.

It has glass-enclosed studios for the public to look in at the KICK 92.3 and KADI 99.5 stations.

Amer said he located his radio stations on West Sunshine because the site was ideal for a broadcast tower.

“I think that building suits their purposes much more than ours,” he said of Cox Roofing.

The roofing company is undergoing a $75,000 remodel for office updates and a showroom.

“It was really just some minor infill,” Mills said. “We redid our reception area pretty much top to bottom.”

A recreation room with a pool table, dart board and TV also was added, an amenity Mills said the company has wanted for 20 years.

The roofing company now has four times the warehouse space.

“That’s probably the biggest factor,” Mills said. “That gives us a lot of space, not just storage, but the ability to have a small woodshop for repairs, gives us a place to repair our own tools without outsourcing. And it does give us some buying power because now we can store material as we see fit to keep our prices more competitive.”

He said the former location was cramped.

“One thing we did gain here is everyone has their own office,” Mills said.

“If we could hire and retain over the next year another 10 employees, that would be wonderful.”

Cox Roofing currently has just under 40 employees.

“Starting this year, this will be the first time we have a 401(k) plan we’re offering our employees,” Mills said. “Also, after three years of service, we cover 100 percent of their health care premium.”

The growth in office space mirrors Cox Roofing’s revenue pattern.

“We were almost a full 20 percent over last year, which was a record year,” Mills said of the predominantly residential roofing work.

The company has recorded $6 million in gross sales over the last 12 months, he said, up from nearly $5 million the previous 12-month period.

“We’ve seen growth almost every year,” Mills said, noting there’s been one flat year out of the last 14.

The company worked on nearly 1,000 roofs the last 12 months.

“We specialize in residential re-roofs,” Mills said. “We don’t do much new construction.”

Cox Roofing is slated to celebrate its 40th anniversary in May.

The company’s footprint has gradually doubled to a 60-mile radius for services and marketing.

“That reaches a few more areas, getting down to Mountain Grove and down into Joplin,” he said. “It was a combination of things – word of mouth, we were getting calls from those areas – and we would go ahead and go that far. We just weren’t focusing on gaining any new customers there.”