SRC 10-year plan stays on schedule

A recently wrapped expansion in northeast Springfield is the latest investment toward roughly $100 million in projects by SRC Holdings Corp. that officials say has it tracking on pace, if not slightly ahead, of its 10-year plan announced in 2021.

SRC Logistics Inc., one of the remanufacturing company’s 10 subsidiaries, assumed occupancy in April of its new 413,000-square-foot facility after 13 months of construction. The project completion comes around a year after SRC Logistics finished a 150,000-square-foot expansion of its 2607 N. Mulroy Road operation. The original 162,000-square-foot building on the site was built in 2021.

The completed expansion work provides SRC Logistics, which specializes in reverse logistics and management for the remanufacturing industry, with 725,000 square feet under roof on Mulroy Road, said Dick Moger, SRC executive vice president. It’s part of the intention for the Springfield-based group of remanufacturing businesses to expand its Queen City properties by roughly 1.1 million square feet by 2031. That would result in a local footprint of nearly 3.5 million square feet.

When the 10-year plan, which incorporates five of the company’s plants, was announced two years ago, officials projected the expansion plans would lead to the creation of more than 900 jobs by 2025. While some of those are being added at SRC facilities in Kentucky and Illinois, SRC General Counsel Dennis Sheppard said this month that most of the jobs, estimated at over 600, will be in Springfield. The company is on target for the increased job projections, he said, noting current companywide employment has grown to 2,100, a nearly 25% jump from its employee count in 2021. Of that total, 1,750 work in Springfield, according to Springfield Business Journal list research.

“At the rate that we’re going, we’ll finish the $100 million before 10 years,” Sheppard said. “We are very comfortable with those numbers.”

Declining to disclose financials, Sheppard said SRC has bounced back from the initial monetary impact of the coronavirus pandemic. According to past reporting, 2020 was a down financial year for the company, as year-over-year profits dropped about 30%. However, he said for the period covering fiscal years 2019-2022, SRC’s profits increased over 28%.

The company’s solid financial standing led SRC to purchase the 140,000-square-foot facility it had previously leased in Lexington, Kentucky. Sheppard said the company bought the property last year from Setzer Investments for $6.5 million, checking off a box in its $100 million plan.

Sunshine status
Aside from SRC Logistics, the company also has projects in motion at its 43-acre East Sunshine Street campus. The plan calls for a 120,000-square-foot expansion to its 2401 E. Sunshine St. property, which houses businesses such as SRC Electrical LLC and The Great Game of Business. The expansion is expected to grow the footprint to 445,000 square feet, according to past reporting.

The company also is building a 55,000-square-foot self-storage building on the rear portion of the property, Moger said, adding the 300-unit facility will have a separate entrance off Enterprise Avenue. Construction for the 300-unit facility, dubbed Enterprise Self Storage, should be complete by late July, he said.

Infrastructure work is expected to start in the coming months for the first two buildings of what is being projected as 120,000-150,000 square feet of leasable office, retail and restaurant space fronting Sunshine Street. The scope increased from two years ago, when the plans called for 70,000 square feet.

“As soon as we get those designs and get city approval, then we’ll be starting those buildings later this year,” Moger said, noting the first two buildings combined will be 25,000-30,000 square feet. “Optimistically, we could have those completed this year.”

The design plans are expected to be revealed to employees in the next few weeks, but while Sheppard said the company has several letters of intent, names are not being revealed yet.

“They’re being phased in,” he said of future building plans on the property. “We’re going to build them as demand percolates up and down. We don’t have a timetable. I’m not going to say we’re going to do them at a leisurely pace, but we’re going to do them at our pace.”

Additionally, infrastructure improvements were completed last year, including a new traffic signal at the Sunshine and Lone Pine Avenue intersection. SRC funded the nearly $1 million project, according to officials.

“The Lone Pine and Sunshine light was a three-way light. Now, it’s a four-way light,” Moger said of the work that extended Lone Pine onto SRC’s property to improve ingress and egress for employees and tenants.

Continued investments
As the company’s workforce expands, SRC remains committed to helping its employees further their education and skill up, said Krisi Schell, executive vice president of human resources. The company provides 100% tuition reimbursement for full-time employees as one of its benefits, she said. SRC also pays for employees who apply and are accepted to a program in partnership with Ozarks Technical Community College for a customized associate degree in manufacturing technology. The program takes roughly three years to complete, she said.

Other projects in the 10-year plan include a projected 140,000-square-foot building at Chestnut Expressway and Pythian Street to be used for expansion or a possible retail space, according to past reporting. 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.

At Mulroy Road, SRC Logistics is moving into its new warehouse over a three-month period, Sheppard said, noting the process is about 65% complete. The move consolidates the company’s operations into one campus and replaces the use of a 410,000-square-foot facility on Pythian Street. Another company division, NewStream Enterprises, plans to expand beyond its 1925 E. Chestnut Expressway campus into the Pythian Street building, according to officials.

With the expansion complete, SRC Logistics plans to grow its supply chain management, warehouse contract leasing and order fulfillment services, officials say. But Moger said the company isn’t ruling out additional expansion for the division, which lists Bobcat and Navistar among clients on its website.  SRC Logistics specializes in reverse logistics and management for the remanufacturing industry.

“We’ve got room to add two more facilities out there that total upwards of 350,000 square feet,” he said. “In our long-range plan, Logistics thinks they’re where they need to be. But with new customers and everything else, you never know.”

Dennis Sheppard: SRC is on pace to complete planned projects before 10-year mark.

Dick Moger expects Enterprise Self Storage to be finished later this summer.