HUNTSVILLE - It’s a go.
MBRP Inc. co-owner Ginger Barkey confirmed that the company, one of the industry leaders in performance exhaust systems manufacturing and design, has received approval from the Town of Huntsville for its expansion plans.
She said that plans call for an expansion of 20,000 to 25,000 square feet and increasing their workforce by 15 to 20 per cent. She said that with a present workforce of 75 full-time workers, the new expansion could mean as many as 15 new jobs.
Martin Barkey, the president and chief operating officer, said that the site plans were completed on Friday and work on the new addition could begin shortly.
“We could break ground on the expansion possibly within 30 days,” he said.
The company has expanded a couple of times over the past six years, including a 10,000-square-foot addition onto its existing headquarters, located along Old Ferguson Road for warehouse storage in 2006, and later the acquisition of the former Quinlan’s motorcycle business, which is situated on the same parcel of land as the MBRP headquarters.
The Quinlan’s space is currently used for warehousing and some manufacturing,
The company has been a major success ever since it began from its humble roots in a Burk’s Falls garage owned by the Barkeys in the mid-1990s. MBRP was named in 2006 by Profit magazine as one of the top 200 fastest-growing Canadian companies in the last five years in its annual listing called The Profit 100, Canada’s authoritative ranking of high-growth companies, recognizing the achievements of the best and brightest business stars. .
That same year, the company upgraded its production to three shifts working on a 24-hour rotation.
The construction of the new addition shouldn’t interfere with existing operations.
Ginger said the idea is to do is move the company’s production space into its Quinlan’s warehouse, and that warehouse into this new space. Once the expansion is completed, she said the company headquarters would be more than 50,000 square feet.