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Former Ethan Allen facility has new tenants, energy
September 16, 2003
By Robin Palmer
TIMES ARGUS STAFF
RANDOLPH - Standing over humming machines, wooden parts piling up around them, a handful of former Ethan Allen employees are home.
J.D. Properties, which purchased the 170,000-square-foot former Ethan Allen plant on Hull Street in June, is moving its Nantucket Post Cap, Green Mountain Wood Products and DecorativeOutdoorFurniture.com employees into the space.
Some of the employees worked for years for the Randolph Division of Ethan Allen before it closed last year. J.D. Properties operated at a smaller plant in Braintree.
This week, Nantucket Post Cap employees went to work in the Randolph plant. Electricians were setting up equipment so Green Wood Products workers also can return to work.
Working 10-hour days to make up for a week off while the transition occurred, Chief Executive Officer Bob Tellier said the workers are "thrilled" to be in the spacious Ethan Allen plant, with its smooth, clean floors and elaborate dust filtration system.
The governor will tour the Randolph facility on Wednesday during a 10 a.m. open house and ceremonial ribbon cutting.
He will find more than just J.D. Properties employees at work, however.
"The whole concept ... is the business incubator," Tellier said, describing how J.D. Properties employees receive goods for other tenants in the building and take care of other business needs.
J.D. Properties needed only about 50,000 of the 170,000 square feet available at the plant. Winter heating costs will make finances tight, and its Vermont Economic Development Authority loan dictates that the company fill a portion of the building with other tenants and sell its Braintree plant.
Once the Braintree plant sells and some money is freed up, J.D. Properties will add a panel shop to its operations and hire 13 new employees, Tellier said. The company currently has 33 employees.
J.D. Properties paid Ethan Allen $950,000 for the building and 25 acres. The property and plant are assessed at $1.7 million.
So far, stove manufacturers Vermont Castings and Morso are renting warehouse space in the plant. Both had been using warehouses in New Hampshire, Tellier said, as a forklift operator shifted piles of boxed Vermont Castings stoves into neat rows.
"It was really sad that Vermont companies had to warehouse in New Hampshire," Tellier said.
Quaker Hill Granola, a small Randolph business, has a storage room and receives goods at the plant, as does Sunrise Solar Services, also of Randolph. Quaker Hill Granola owner Nancy Tucker used to run the business solely out of her basement, Tellier said. Vermont Ozventures, another local company, will request development review board permission tonight to put its commercial offices in the industrial space.
Brooke Burgee, who has partnered with local entrepreneur Jesse Sammis III in the business venture, is hoping to open an art gallery, studio and wellness center in office space at the Randolph plant. Since February, Ozventures has been offering bicycle tours and other outdoor adventures out of the Three Stallion Inn, owned by Sammis.
"I have my fingers crossed," said Burgee, 25, of tonight's development review board meeting.
Ozventures hopes to open on Halloween in the Hull Street space.
About 55,000 square feet of warehouse or manufacturing space and 2,500 square feet of office space will be left in the building according to Michael Lori, a Tunbridge consultant who is helping J.D. Properties fill the space and sell the Braintree facility.
For his part, Tellier is concentrating on getting wood parts manufacturers Green Mountain Wood Products and Nantucket Post Cap, formerly of Massachusetts, back up and running.
"We're excited about it, but it's hard. We've been working 24 hours, seven days a week. We promised our customers they'd be no delays in their delivery," he said.
Tellier said J.D. Properties had more attractive offers elsewhere, in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, but owner James Dwinell wanted to stay in Vermont.
When Ethan Allen closed last year putting 154 people out of work, and then Waterbury Companies announced this year that it would close in the coming months, eliminating another 70 manufacturing jobs in Randolph, town officials said they would need to find companies committed to being in Vermont.
It appears they have found that in Dwinell.
"I don't think Vermont worked for Ethan Allen. Vermont is a very expensive place to do business," Tellier said. "But it's where we want to be."
"We're not committed to maximizing our bottom line at the expense of the local community," he said.
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