Hours after completing the deal to purchase the former Milton CAT facility in Hopkinton, HP Fairfield President Phil Nangle could not wait to show his employees their new workspace.
With the keys in hand, Nangle brought his crew of 17 people up to the site at 554 Maple St., just off Exit 6 on Interstate 89. The 55,000-square foot facility, vacant since CAT moved out in 2016, is more than six times the size of HP Fairfield’s current facility on Sheep Davis Road in Pembroke.
“We took the guys over there and it was like Christmas morning,” Nangle said Wednesday. “This facility (in Pembroke) has been great for us, but based on the customer demand, we needed a new facility.”
The move is a sign of growth for the company, which manufactures public works and runway maintenance products, including trucks and snow-plow equipment for state and municipal services.
It is also a positive step for the town, which has been trying to bolster economic development in the area over the last few years as residents face the ninth-highest tax rate in the state ($34.74 per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2018).
Although the move does not immediately inject more dollars into the tax base, Hopkinton Town Administrator Neal Cass said it is a good sign of future growth in the area.
“We hope it is the beginning of more development in the area,” he said. “Just having an empty property no longer be empty and have a company that is growing and doing well is exciting.”
Milton CAT, the northeast and upstate New York Caterpillar dealer which consolidated its Hopkinton and Warner facilities in June 2016 to a location in Londonderry, continued to pay taxes on the property until it sold to HP Fairfield last December.
HP Fairfield will pay about the same in taxes, roughly $56,000 based on last year’s tax rate. The 23-acre site was most recently assessed at $1.65 million, according to town records, and sold for about $1.55 million. Nangle said the company plans to invest another $1 million to $1.5 million to refurbish the facility. It’s aiming to be fully moved in by the summer and hold a grand opening sometime in June.
The company opened in Skowhegan, Maine, in 1951 and operates across New England with additional facilities in Vermont and Connecticut. It’s New Hampshire branch has been operating on Sheep Davis Road since 1983, Nangle said, and began searching for a larger facility in the capital region about 18 months ago.
Nangle, who joined the company about two years ago as director of operations, said they considered expanding their current facility but that would eat away at the outdoor space on their 5.5 acre lot. Their building in Pembroke has expanded twice since its opening in the ’80s, adding five bays behind the original structure. The site is currently assessed at $570,900, according to Pembroke tax records.
“It’s a nice property, but if you start adding on you start losing space,” Nangle said. “That wasn’t really conducive for us.”
As the company began searching for a new home, Nangle said staying within 30 minutes or so of their Pembroke location was important. The old CAT facility is about 20 minutes away and within eyesight of the Exit 6 off-ramp.
Nangle said they considered a few locations in Concord but found the best combination of price and space in Hopkinton.
“We wanted to stay close,” Nangle said. “We didn’t want to go to Manchester. We wanted to stay where the niche is and where HP Fairfield has been.”
The extra space, which
includes 16 bays, will allow the company to double its workforce to about 30 installers or more, Nangle said, and better meet demand, which usually spikes in the winter.
“We’re trying to get
about 12 months of even flow,” he said, referring to their manufacturing output. “A bigger facility will allow this.”
The company is in the process of putting its Sheep Davis Road location on the market. Town officials in Pembroke did not return messages seeking comment.
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3321, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)