Grizzly breaks ground on $10 million expansion

Grizzly Industrial broke ground June 27 on 40 acres at the southwest corner of Kansas Expressway and Battlefield for a $10 million, 300,000-square-foot distribution center.

The company also has plans for future expansion on the land, located across the street from its retail store, according to Shiraz Balolia, Grizzly founder and president. The land was rezoned from general retail to industrial commercial last month.

The company, a manufacturer and seller of metal- and wood-working tools and equipment, left its Memphis, Tenn., location to open the site here nearly a year ago and decided to make the Springfield location the largest of its three sites in the United States.

"Once the retail facility in Springfield got going a year ago, we were able to better tell what kind of work force there was in Springfield, what kinds of problems we would encounter there, if any, regarding incoming and outgoing freight," Balolia said.

"We found that although there were some minor inconveniences associated with incoming freight, the outbound freight worked really well. Springfield has a very good employment force, and the people here have a good work ethic," Balolia said.

Grizzly has its headquarters and a retail center in Seattle, Wash., and a retail center, distribution center and offices in Pennsylvania. The company also has a large catalog business, and it will offer more than 2,000 items in its catalogs and retail stores by the end of the year, Balolia said.

The Springfield expansion is part of a company-wide expansion that includes relocating its 120,000-square-foot Pennsylvania retail and distribution center to a new 227,000-square-foot facility. Balolia said the new distribution center here will employ about 50.

"We're a rapidly growing company, and as such, we require a lot of space," Balolia said. Tom Wirt is the general contractor for the project, and Butler, Rosenbury & Partners is the architect.