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IN OPERATION: NewStream Enterprises workers Mark Lehman, left, and Tad Hutchens package products in the company’s warehouse in the former Solo Cup building.
SBJ photo by Jessica Rosa
IN OPERATION: NewStream Enterprises workers Mark Lehman, left, and Tad Hutchens package products in the company’s warehouse in the former Solo Cup building.

Solo Cup complex nears capacity, gets $11M addition

The warehouse and manufacturing hub has been silently revived in recent years with new tenants

Posted online

When Solo Cup Co. sold its massive facility on Glenstone Avenue north of Chestnut Expressway in 2010, it took several hundred jobs with it.

Warren Davis Properties LLC purchased the former Solo Cup building at 1100 N. Glenstone Ave. for $7.9 million with the intent to keep the longtime manufacturing building in the industrial realm. And that’s what Davis Properties did.

The warehouse space, which is roughly 909,600 square feet, is at full capacity, and only 25,000 square feet of office space is available in the entire building, said Patrick Harrington, co-owner of Warren Davis Properties.

“I think we’re probably at greater risk of tenants outgrowing the space than the tenants needing less space,” Harrington said.

That’s what led to the current expansion of the Solo Cup complex, he said, which is an $11 million addition directly to the east at 1960 E. Bergman St.

Though the massive facility may be known to Springfieldians as the Solo Cup building – which is still the name Harrington uses – it’s anything but that anymore. Several companies have been key to quietly reviving the manufacturing and warehouse hub over the last decade: SRC Logistics Inc., NewStream Enterprises LLC, Michigan-based Truck Hero, Florida-based Real Truck and D&J Classic Cars.

SRC operations
SRC Holdings Corp. has two divisions operating at the Solo Cup complex.

NewStream Enterprises, a supply chain management company, occupies nearly 445,000 square feet of warehousing and manufacturing space, according to information provided by Harrington.

Sara Kaderly, director of sales and marketing, said NewStream still has room to expand clientele. NewStream works with original equipment manufacturers, she said, declining to disclose clients.

“We have a growth strategy in place as we look toward bringing on new clients,” Kaderly said, adding the company is looking to expand to banking and other industries. “In the event that outstretches our current footprint, we’ll look for additional space.”

Krisi Schell, spokeswoman for SRC Holdings, said NewStream employs roughly 240 employees at the North Glenstone Avenue plant.

Next door at SRC Logistics, which is connected by a corridor, General Manager Mike White said its 410,000-square-foot warehouse space is filled with old engines and engine components for supply chain services.

“We’re bringing the old engines and parts back from the field, inspecting them, warehousing them and when a remanufacturing plant is ready to start building those again, we ship those out,” he said.

SRC Holdings in 2017 purchased its building, which it had leased from Davis Properties since 2007 for an undisclosed amount, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. Harrington said Davis Properties bought the building in 2004, and it was not originally part of the Solo Cup complex. SRC Logistics leases an additional 103,000 square feet in the complex, he said.

Harrington said the sale of the SRC Logistics building dropped the total square footage owned by Davis Properties in the complex from 1.35 million square feet back to 940,000 square feet, not including current construction.

Schell said SRC Logistics employs 120 associates in the building, declining to disclose revenues.

Truck Hero
Where the large Solo Cup once was the face of the Glenstone Avenue building is now a logo for Truck Hero, a company that manufactures and sells bed covers for trucks.

Truck Hero occupies over 343,500 square feet of the complex, where its employees manufacture and ship truck bed covers, said Sean Marks, executive vice president of marketing. The company supplies bed covers to Keystone Automotive Operations Inc., Transamerican Auto Parts, Meyer Distributing Inc. and local truck shops. It also sells the products on Amazon and other e-commerce platforms.

Truck Hero also expanded its Real Truck e-commerce, retail brand to Springfield two months ago with warehousing space.

Marks said most of the bedcovers are priced $500-$1,000, adding that some can cost as high at $2,000.

Truck Hero’s UnderCover Inc. division also has a manufacturing plant in Rogersville, and Marks said that opened the door to the company’s interest in Springfield two years ago when it moved its BAK Industries division from the West Coast.

“We knew we could hire the workforce that could support that growing business, and it’s centrally located,” Marks said. “We basically moved the entire plant from Chatsworth, California, to Springfield.”

Marks declined to disclose employee count at the facility and company revenue. The company in total has 4,000 employees and 20 facilities nationwide, he said.

Also occupying roughly 14,000 square feet each in the complex is D&J Classic Cars and Davis Properties, Harrington said.

Under development
With warehouse space at 100% occupancy, steel framing is up behind the Glenstone Avenue building for a 205,000-square-foot addition to the complex.

The project, which Harrington said could reach $11 million, is expected to wrap up in April, with Q & Co. LLC serving as general contractor and Buxton Kubik Dodd Design Collective as architect.

“All the warehouse space is leased, and we had talked about building this spec building for the past couple of years,” Harrington said. “There’s been a healthy demand for industrial space in general over the past five years.”

According to real estate research firm CoStar Group Inc. (Nasdaq: CSGP), the industrial vacancy rate in Greene and Christian counties was 4.5% at the end of 2019 – about flat from the year prior.

The new development will add three warehouse spaces – one of which already has been leased, Harrington said. Kansas City-based door company D.H. Pace Co. LLC signed an undisclosed lease agreement for 65,000 square feet, he said.

Also available for lease is a roughly 39,000-square-foot space for $5.95 per foot and another 100,000 square feet at $4.95 per foot, Harrington said.

Harrington said there are no current plans for additional projects, noting space is becoming limited at the complex.

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