Decade of Developments: SRC plans up to $100M in projects over 10 years

SRC Holdings Corp. is planning $75 million-$100 million worth of developments through its new 10-year plan, according to company officials.

The Springfield-based group of remanufacturing businesses intends to expand existing Queen City properties to the tune of 1.1 million square feet over the next decade, said Dick Moger, SRC executive vice president. The company currently has over 2 million square feet across nine properties in Springfield.

Officials said the expansion plans, by 2025, would create more than 900 jobs, some of which would be at SRC facilities in Kentucky and Illinois. SRC General Counsel Dennis Sheppard said “at least” 600 of the positions will be in Springfield.

“We’re working on the factories of the future,” SRC CEO Jack Stack said in an exclusive interview with Springfield Business Journal. “And we’re working for the people of the future.”

Krisi Schell, executive vice president of human resources, recently told SBJ that SRC estimated a need to add about 100 employees over the next 30 to 60 days. She said the company employs roughly 1,700 people across its 10 subsidiaries.

Growth commitment
Sheppard said the 10-year plan, which incorporates five of the company’s facilities, paints a picture for prospective employees that SRC is committed to long-term investment.

“It’s not going to be confined to the one ball we have up in the air right now,” he said. “It’s going to be a growing, changing, dynamic enterprise.”

Ryan Mooney, vice president of economic development for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, said the plan shows SRC is serious about growing locally.

“By the time this is all said and done, they’ll occupy about one-tenth of our industrial base, which is fantastic to have a growing homegrown company like that,” he said of SRC’s plans to expand its footprint to around 3 million square feet in Springfield.

Mooney said he’s uncertain where SRC would rank among industrial property owners in the city. He noted The Kraft Heinz Co. (Nasdaq: KHC) and the incoming Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) also represent large industrial spaces in Greene County. Amazon is building a 1.3 million-square-foot distribution and fulfillment center in Republic, set to open in August. The Seattle-based online retailer also plans to open a nearly 85,000-square-foot “AMXL” delivery station in Springfield this month.

“They’d definitely be one of the top,” Mooney said of SRC. “We don’t actually have that data broken down by who the owner or tenant is.”

The road ahead
An expansion project in the city’s northeast for SRC Logistics, at 2607 N. Mulroy Road, is in progress, Moger said.

The 10-year plan begins with the 135,000-square-foot Phase II of the Mulroy facility, which was just built last year at 165,000 square feet, he said. A Phase III warehouse and manufacturing building to the north of the current plant would add another 250,000 square feet. However, a timeline is not yet set as it’s dependent on growth, he said, adding drawings for the facility are being finalized.

“We have started, for 2021, $8.5 million to $9 million worth in projects,” Moger said. “In 2020, we added 255,000 square feet and spent $20 million on our facilities. We had a lot of activity going on.”

The plan is rolling out amidst a down financial year in 2020 for the company. The coronavirus pandemic impacted year-over-year profits, which dropped about 30%, Sheppard said, declining to disclose financials.

“Fortunately, we had stored enough nuts in our treehouse that we got through the pandemic,” he said. “We were grazed, but we certainly weren’t brought to our knees.”

At the company’s 43-acre East Sunshine Street campus, the plan calls for a 120,000-square-foot expansion. The 2401 E. Sunshine St. property – which houses businesses such as SRC Electrical LLC and The Great Game of Business – would reach 445,000 square feet with the expansion.

Additionally, SRC officials plan to develop roughly 70,000 square feet of office, retail and restaurant space fronting Sunshine Street, as well as a 50,000-square-foot self-storage building on the rear portion of the property. Part of the plan involves the Sunshine and Lone Pine Avenue intersection, Sheppard said.

“Assuming we can get authority from the state, the first thing we’re wanting to do is to extend Lone Pine from its current terminus at Sunshine Street,” he said. “We would have the intersection on our property at the north side of Sunshine.”

Moger said the speed at which office and retail property develops is connected to public interest.

“If we get serious inquiries and people are ready to go, we can expedite,” he said. “That’s going to be on an as-needed basis.”

At Chestnut Expressway and Pythian Street, a planned 140,000-square-foot building would be used for expansion or a possible retail space, officials say. The existing building houses NewStream Enterprises.

The plan also calls on a smaller expansion of SRC Automotive Inc. on West Calhoun Street to bring the facility to 211,000 square feet.

New launch
Moger and Sheppard are currently the lone employees of SRC Realty Co., which was registered early last year with the Missouri secretary of state’s office. Sheppard said SRC Realty is a separate division of the company to oversee the retail and commercial development projects. The two executives work out of the company’s 531 S. Union Ave. headquarters, but Sheppard said SRC Realty likely will be in its own building down the road.

“We’re going to let the scope of the business self-direct and take its own direction,” Sheppard said.

The real estate portfolio includes facilities in Monett and Lexington, Kentucky, that total roughly 300,000 square feet. SRC also manages, but does not lease or own, an additional plant in Joliet, Illinois.

SRC officials are determining if the realty company will hire a maintenance manager for all of the company properties. Sheppard said all of SRC’s subsidiaries operate almost autonomously when it comes to those decisions.

“We want to have a common resource type of thing,” Moger said. “With as many square feet of buildings we have under roofs, if you’ve got a problem, you want somebody where you can pick the phone up and call to get service 24 hours a day.”

As SRC embarks on its expansion projects and development of commercial and retail space, Sheppard said he’s confident the work will all be accomplished in the next decade.

“Absent a black swan, you can pretty well take all of this to the bank that it’s going to happen,” he said.

Web Editor Geoff Pickle and Editorial Director Eric Olson contributed.