Corporate Business Systems prepares to move

It’s not because he has an office in some other location or because he wants to be more hands-off in his management.

There’s just no room for the Corporate Business Systems owner.

Quesenberry’s former office space is now home to four employees who subdivided the space so they’d have somewhere to work. The storage room has to be rearranged every time a new shipment comes in. The sales staff is hidden in a back room where half a dozen cubicles are stuffed into a meager space.

“We’re climbing over ourselves right now,” said Vice President and General Manager Brian Peltier.

That’s what happens when a 10,000-square-foot building that originally housed fewer than 10 employees now holds 37 employees, and the business is still growing.

Quesenberry is building a 20,000-square-foot Corporate Business Systems office and showroom, just a few hundred feet from the current location at 509 S. Cavalier Ave.

In July, Morelock-Ross Builders broke ground on the project, which will cost between $1.5 million and $2 million. The Marshall-Waters-Woody-designed facility should be ready by January, Quesenberry said.

The building is part of the 16-acre Cherry Street Business Park, developed by HMR Properties LLP on the site of the former Golf Land driving range. HMR Properties is an investment group headed by Morelock-Ross principals Kenny Ross and Randy Allen.

Site improvements, according to project manager David Ross of Morelock-Ross, also include an extension of Ingram Mill Road as a private drive into the business park. Ross said the Ingram Mill extension should be complete by January.

The property, which will be sold to individual companies looking to build, is listed with Ken Schwab of Wilhoit Properties. The land, zoned for general manufacturing, is listed at $4 to $5 per square foot.

Corporate Business Systems, the first and only current tenant of the park, says the new space offers several advantages.

“One thing that it does is provide a lot of visibility that we don’t have,” GM Peltier said, noting the direct frontage on Highway 65. “Also, our demonstration area will provide for more products.”

The new spot also features badly needed warehouse space, a training area, where the company hopes to not only train its own employees but those from other companies as well, and three times the space for equipment service, Quesenberry said. The biggest change, though, will be in organization.

“We’ve experienced nice growth here, and we want a facility that better represents the level of success that we’ve had,” Peltier said.