Growth driving auto parts supplier into bigger space

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MT. COMFORT — Work has begun on an auto parts manufacturer’s new warehouse going up in Mt. Comfort.

Carmel-based Becknell Industrial is developing the nearly $30 million facility for Spectra Premium between Landsberg and Brybelly on County Road 200N in Alliance Interstate Park. The warehouse will be just less than 500,000 square feet.

Spectra Premium has been operating a warehouse of about 250,000 square feet a few miles away off of W. County Road 300N east of Mt. Comfort Road since 2013. Philip Fallis, Spectra Premium’s director of corporate distribution for North America, said business growth is driving the company into a bigger space.

Spectra Premium’s current Hancock County facility employs about 300, Fallis said. Not only will those employees move to the new warehouse, but also the staff at the company’s Knightstown location.

The new warehouse should be operational in early 2020, Fallis continued. He said the company will add more jobs to the facility over the following four to five years.

“Indiana and Hancock County is a logistic center and offers Spectra a competitive advantage,” Fallis said during a ground-breaking ceremony earlier this week as heavy equipment conducted site work in the background.

Contributing to that logistical advantage are the 14 interstates crossing the state and the world’s second largest FedEx hub nearby, Fallis said.

Hancock County Economic Development Council executive director Randy Sorrell said when Spectra Premium moves out of its current Hancock County warehouse, the property will aid in his efforts to draw companies looking to move to or expand in the area.

“It gives me another piece of property to work with,” he said.

Matt Cohoat, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Becknell Industrial, recalled how the company’s first project was Spectra Premium’s current building.

Headquartered in Quebec, Canada, Spectra Premium operates 16 warehouses and five manufacturing plants worldwide.