Clearline Technology expanding
City company triples its manufacturing space
Wed Aug 15 2007
By Murray McNeill
KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Neil Krovats says U.S. sales of the company's rooftop support products have been growing by 75 to 80 per cent a year over each of the past three years.
A three-year-old Winnipeg firm has more than tripled the size of its manufacturing space as it scrambles to keep up with a growing U.S. demand for its recycled-rubber construction products.
Clearline Technologies has spent more than $2 million to acquire the three former Motor Coach Industries buildings in the city's West End and intends to spend another $500,000 renovating them.
The company plans to use the largest of the three buildings -- a 110,000-square-foot facility at the corner of St. Matthews Avenue and Wall Street -- to house its manufacturing operations, as well as its head office and three other related companies.
However, the lion's share of the space -- about 95,000 square feet -- will be used for manufacturing, company founder Neil Krovats said in an interview Tuesday. That will be a huge improvement over the 25,000 square feet of production space Clearline had in another Wall Street building it was leasing before it acquired the Motor Coach buildings late last month.
"We were busting at the seams in the other building," Krovats said, noting U.S. sales of the company's rooftop support products have been growing by 75 t0 80 per cent a year over each of the past three years. He said that growth could have been even greater if there had been room in the old building to expand the company's production operations.
Clearline plans to convert the second largest of the three buildings -- a 60,000-square-foot structure at the corner of Erin Street and St. Matthews Avenue -- into a storage facility where people can rent space to store things like boats, recreational vehicles and household goods.
By the numbers
Here are the three firms within the Clearline group of companies:
Clearline Technologies -- designs and manufactures steel, pre-engineered, rooftop walkways, catwalks and platforms, as well as rooftop support products made from recycled rubber. The recycled-rubber products are used to support heating, plumbing, electrical and air conditioning pipes and equipment found on the rooftops of commercial buildings.
Clearline Construction -- Builds and develops residential and commercial buildings and designs and manufactures wooden wall-frame systems used in the construction of these types of buildings.
Clearline Web Systems -- Designs websites.
The third building, a 15,000-square-foot facility on Erin Street, will be resold. Krovats said negotiations are underway with a prospective buyer.
The company designs and manufactures two main types of rooftop construction products. One is a line of modular-designed, pre-engineered, steel walkways, catwalks and platforms. The other is a line of rooftop support products made from recycled rubber. The products, called C-Port products, are used to support plumbing, heating, air conditioning, electrical pipes and equipment found on the rooftops of commercial buildings.
Krovats said it's the C-Port products that are in big demand right now in the United States, partly because of the growing popularity of environmentally friendly, recycled building products.
"C-Port is the core of the business," he said. "That is the golden goose that has propelled our company and allowed us to get into these other things."
The "other things" Krovats refers to are two new business ventures Clearline has launched in the past year -- a website development company called Clearline Web Systems, and Clearline Construction, a firm that builds and develops commercial and residential buildings.
Clearline Construction also designs and manufactures wooden wall-frame systems that can be used in the construction of residential and commercial buildings. It currently manufactures the systems at a plant outside the city, but that work will also be shifted to the newly acquired building on St. Matthews.
Krovats said Clearline Web Systems and Krovats Distributing, another family owned business that distributes heating and plumbing supplies, are also moving into the St. Matthews building. He said there's enough room in the building to all for all four companies to expand their operations.
The three Clearline companies currently have a combined staff of about 22 employees, and Krovats said he expects that number to grow to about 40 by the end of this year.
He said the combined revenues of Clearline companies grew five fold in the past year, and he expects them to double again over the next year.
Gloria Cardwell-Hoeppner, executive director of the West End Business Improvement Zone, said she's thrilled that Clearline has moved into the former Motor Coach buildings.
"To me it just reaffirms that the West End is undergoing a revitalization," Cardwell-Hoeppner said.
murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca