By Barbara Rattle

The Enterprise

Salt Lake City-based Kimball Investments plans to break ground for a 135-room hotel in Murray this summer.

To be located at 171 E. 5300 S., the Marriott Residence Inn will be six stories tall, sit on about 2.5 acres and offer some “pretty good meeting space,” said Kimball Investments partner David Kimball.

“There isn’t anything new, quite frankly, of this scale in Murray,” he said, noting the site’s proximity to the massive Intermountain Medical Center was the project’s primary driver.

Beecher Walker Architects designed the hotel and a contractor is close to be chosen, Kimball said, noting ground should be broken in July and construction will take 12 to 15 months to complete. Financing most likely will come from U.S. Bank, he said.

The hotel will boast Marriott Residence Inn’s latest “Generation 9” design, which was unveiled in March and includes a more contemporary, higher-end feel, primarily in terms of furniture and layout. Marriott Residence Inns, of which there are currently five in Utah, offer spacious suites with separate living and sleeping areas, fully equipped in-suite kitchens, free grocery delivery service, free WiFi and in-room high-speed Internet access, free hot breakfast, outdoor spaces such as swimming and barbecue areas, complimentary evening socials and fitness centers with television sets.

Kimball Investments is not new to hotel development. The firm entered the market in 1985 with the creation of the Peery Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City and owns, among others, the Hampton Inn downtown and a Holiday Inn at 999 S. Main St.

Kimball said his firm purchased the Murray acreage in late 2008 and is “very excited about finally getting this off the ground.”

By Brice Wallace

The Enterprise

Extra Space Storage Inc., based in Salt Lake City, is expanding a self-storage facility in Murray, with expectations that the expansion will be completed by early October.

Kier Construction of Ogden has begun work on the project at 6384 S. Cottonwood St. Extra Space acquired the facility a couple of years ago. It had been operated by Metro Self Storage.

“We bought an existing facility that was impacted by construction of the transit center across the street,” said Scott Wyckoff, director of redevelopment at Extra Space Storage. “So Cottonwood Road was realigned, and that realignment did a partial demolition of our self-storage facility, including an office/apartment and some storage buildings. What we’re redoing is on land adjacent to the existing facility. We’re building two new self-storage buildings and one office/apartment building.”

The self-storage buildings will occupy 23,057 square feet and contain about 230 units, ranging in size from 5-by-5 square feet to 10-by-20 square feet. The office/apartment will be about 1,400 square feet.

“The idea is, at the existing facility, none of it is climate-controlled drive-up,” Wyckoff said. “These new buildings provide us with interior units and also drive-up units that are all climate-controlled, so it’s a different product type.”

The $1.5 million project was designed by J. Craig Mann, Architect, of Santa Ana, Calif.

Extra Space Storage is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust that owns and/or operates 882 self-storage properties in 34 states and Washington, D.C. It has about 585,000 units and about 64 million square feet of rentable space. It is the second-largest owner and/or operator of self-storage properties in the U.S. and is the nation’s largest self-storage management company. Its portfolio includes eight locations in Utah, mostly in the Salt Lake Valley.

“Extra Space is not doing new developments now,” Wyckoff said, “but we are doing façade renovations, upgrades and some additions on our existing facilities, but most of those facilities are not in Utah.”

By Barbara Rattle

The Enterprise

OnTrac, a Phoenix-based regional overnight package delivery firm, is poised to significantly expand its Salt Lake City footprint.

Currently located in a pair of buildings totaling about 36,000 square feet, the company is planning a June or July move to 107,000 square feet of newly leased space at 1730 S. 5400 W.

The company, which established a Utah presence in 2008, has seen its business rapidly increase here with the relatively recent addition of its overnight services to Utah. Previously, the company offered only its messenger services in the Beehive State, according to Laura Peterson, OnTrac’s vice president of marketing.

“We’re hoping to get the automation in the [new] facility done prior to us moving in,” she said. “There are some improvements that are starting now but not the automation; we’ve just drawn up the plans and need a certain amount of room for drivers to drive in and load up their vehicles after everything has been sorted into their routes.”

OnTrac currently has nearly 90 vehicles in its Utah fleet, and the new facility has the capacity for 30 more, she said.

“The extra space allows us to make sure we’ve got the ability to sort all our packages and make sure all our vehicles, as they’re loading up, are inside and out of any potential inclement weather,” Peterson said. “It gives us room to stay on schedule.”

With increased automation, no new employees will immediately be added to the Utah staff.

Founded in 1991, OnTrac initially helped law firms, title companies, engineers and architects with a pricing structure the company says is up to 40 percent less than national carriers in part because all its transportation is on the ground. While those types of firms remain some of the company’s most loyal customers, OnTrac has since expanded across the entire spectrum of industries in California and in the major metropolitan areas of Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Colorado.

“Ground service is more cost-effective,” Peterson said.

OnTrac has more than $200 million in annual revenues. Each year since 2002, the firm has been rated one of the Top 25 Fastest-Growing Companies in Arizona by the Arizona Business Journal. The firm has more than 1,200 drop boxes throughout its service area and also offers online account setup and shipping and tracking services.

The firm leased its new location with the assistance of Rad Dye, Tom Dischmann and Jeff Richards of CBRE.

By Brice Wallace

The Enterprise

An indoor soccer project that’s been kicked around for a few years is becoming reality, with developers hoping to score in a community steeped with strong interest in the sport.

Construction on the $9 million Soccer City, 757 W. 11400 S., Draper, began in mid-March and the four-field facility is set to open Sept. 1.

“We’re just getting ready to start concrete work on the building,” Soccer City owner Rick Olsen said. “We’re done with excavation. The walls will be standing in about two months, then we’ll put the steel inside. From here on out, it will move rather quickly.”

Olsen Associates & Construction, the contractor/owner, announced the project in late 2009, but a variety of obstacles delayed construction.

“It was several things,” Olsen said. “It took longer than we thought to get some of the zoning and some of the approvals we needed to get. We actually tried to move the location of the building down to a different area on the same site, which was not successful. And we were working with UDOT [Utah Department of Transportation] and having to get a permit for an access road off of 114th South. Every government entity you have to work with, we had to work with and they don’t exactly move at a rapid pace.”

When Soccer City’s doors open, visitors will find two large fields and two fields for Futsal, which is a five-per-side version of the game.

“We’ve got four fields all under one roof. We’ve done something that’s never really been done in Utah and it’s not been done a whole lot even outside of the state, that we’re aware of. People tend to focus on one or the other [types of fields] and don’t have the whole package. We’re going to be able to offer both. There’s only one other one in Utah that houses more than one field and it’s only got two. We really kind of broke the mold when we sat down and decided to do something really first-class.”

The 78,000 square foot building sits on 6.4 acres that previously was a home and farm. In addition to the fields, Soccer City will feature a lounge, room for a pro shop, a concession area and a 1,300 square foot multipurpose room that can be used for birthday parties, classes and other events. Soccer City will have only a few employees, although game referees are subcontractors.

Olsen expects Soccer City to be a hit for players from age six on up. He believes several thousand people will come in. Some will be casual players, but he knows some diehards who play on four different teams and thus play four nights a week.

“For the most part, it’s been hard to make one of these things pencil out at the end, mainly for the price of land. But we’ve owned this land for seven years now and we’re also a builder, so we were able to build it for more of a wholesale price than a retail having someone else come in and build it. It’s kind of one of those things where all the pieces of the puzzle had to fall into place, and they did for us,” Olsen said.

“The need is tremendous. Soccer is big. I don’t know if it will ever be as big as it is overseas or in South or Central America and such, but there’s definitely a huge market out there and it’s just getting bigger. Real Salt Lake helped spur that but it was already here and coming.”

Ultimately, Soccer City could expand to other cities. But until then, Olsen expects Draper to embrace its facility.

“This is a community asset. It fits more in a community setting. It’s there for the community. It will be a place where people will want to come and hang out. At some existing facilities, you kind of show up five minutes before your game, you play and then you hurry to get back out of there. There’s not a lot of roaming room or social aspect to it.”

ASWN is the project architect. Site and floor plans can be viewed at www.soccercityutah.com.

Thriving tenants at City Creek Center, a significant drop in office vacancy rates and industrial lease rates are on the rise, according to a 2012 quarterly report by commercial real estate brokerage NAI West.

In the retail market, the newly-opened City Creek Center brings 700,000 square-feet of retail space to downtown Salt Lake and includes 90 new stores and restaurants, creating a huge boon to the city’s retail market. Chris Hatch, co-founder, partner and principal of Mountain West Retail-Investment, said the retailers at City Creek are performing well, especially with the well-timed opening that coincided with the Easter holiday and the LDS General Conference.

“The retailers typically have a strong opening and then see a tapered-off sales stream from there,” Hatch said. “With this schedule they were able to have three solid weekend performances in a row which has helped put this trophy asset on the map across the country with real estate professionals.”

For the office market, Casey Mills, NAI office division vice president, said that compared to the first quarter in 2011, the first quarter of 2012 shows a significant drop in the vacancy rate in Salt Lake County from 15.37 to 13.78 percent. “We’re finally starting to hear companies in our market talk about expansion and actually pull the trigger on taking additional space,” Mills said. “There has been an increase in expansion deals during the last 12 months and I think that will continue.”

Although the average asking rates for office space have dropped, despite the fall in the vacancy rate, Mills indicates lease rates will likely increase during the next 12 months. He also added new building construction could slightly increase the vacancy rate but “hopefully, construction of new product will have a minimal impact on the vacancy rates given the current velocity of the market.”

For the industrial market in Salt Lake County, average lease rates are on the rise with a significant increase of $0.03 per square foot per month through the first quarter of 2012 compared to 2011, according to Jeff Heaton, NAI West vice president of industrial properties. Heaton believes the increase in rates is due to an uptick of activity in the smaller size range, less than 10,000 square feet, which typically have higher prices.

Another phenomena is a slowdown in the larger size range, 100,000 square feet plus. “We’re seeing a lot of deals stall due to expectations of tenants, believing they should get massive reductions here in Salt Lake simply because they got them in other parts of the country,” Heaton said. “Landlords are less willing to negotiate because activity has been slowly, but steadily, increasing for over a year.”

In Weber and Davis counties, an increase in office leasing inquiries depicts an interest for businesses to relocate or open new office space. NAI vice president of office/land Chris Falk said company owners seem to be ready to “get off the sidelines” and become more readily involved in expanding their businesses. “Financing is not more readily available and we’re not seeing much job creation,” he said. “I just see it as more people are finally willing to get back in the game.”

For these northern counties, the industrial market shows more investors are flowing into the Weber and Davis county markets, an increase not seen since 2009. Construction projects in the Syracuse and East Gate areas are receiving more attention and industrial rates show a slightly increased purchase price, up about 10 percent.

The Utah commercial real estate market tends to be seasonal, with more activity between April and November. Close to 100,000 square feet was taken off the market by owner/users in Weber and Davis counties, and that could push rates up a little higher if vacancy drops in the northern part of the state.

Overall, while the commercial real estate market is still depressed, small upward trends could bring a favorable year for construction, leases and sales.

By Brice Wallace

The Enterprise

The movie “Lost in Translation” debuted in 2003, but the concept lives on.

Companies wanting international websites face many hurdles in trying to communicate their messages to audiences with different languages, cultures and interests, Adam Wooten, director of translation services at Lehi-based Lingotek, said last week at a Utah Technology Council clinic.

Wooten displayed to the audience examples of non-website translation troubles, such as signs in overseas countries that proclaim, “English well talking” or “Here speeching American.”

“There are certain times we have seen signs around the world that may attempt to communicate one thing but ends up communicating the complete opposite. … Sometimes it’s a little tough when you don’t speak the language and you don’t know if something is really fulfilling its intended purpose,” he said.

Attempts to cater to foreign-language speakers in the U.S. sometimes fail. He showed the packaging for a folding aluminum table, with the English description being clear and detailed, followed by “Spanish here. Spanish here. Spanish here.”

“Sometimes it happens when it seems like it should be really obvious. These errors, these blunders, should be painfully obvious. … These may seem like very obvious blunders, but unfortunately a lot of very similar blunders are committed online all the time,” Wooten said.

Companies with an online presence have many options to eliminate those blunders, but Wooten acknowledged that each iteration and each level of detail comes with a financial cost.

Often, just finding a particular language at a website can be a challenge. The buttons for links to different languages are often small, poorly placed or written in English rather than the script of a particular language. Wooten suggested a map or globe icon, using country names or languages in the native scripts or even an entire start page that offers users the language or country options.

Something as basic as a hard-to-find language button can lose many potential customers. Wooten said that about a year ago, he spoke to a company owner with a website that contained a Japanese language selector, but it was hidden at the bottom of the page.

“He said, ‘Well, you know, no one’s ever complained about this.’ One of his employees spoke up and said, ‘Well, of course they haven’t complained about it. They’re not going to take the time to complain, especially if they can’t figure out where in the world to click or communicate with us. They’re just going to click away and go find a competitor.’ So, yeah, you might not hear any complaints about how you’re website is set up for international users because those users are going elsewhere,” Wooten said.

Among other potential trouble spots are:

• Expecting users to change their browser language settings. Instead, users expect their website preferences to be recorded and remembered, he said.

• Having URLs written in English rather than native languages.

• Using sports analogies or other terminology that simply would have no meaning to international customers.

• Having product names that do not translate well in other languages. Some people overseas wash their clothes in a laundry detergent named Barf — “barf” means “snow” in Farsi. Wooten said a Japanese software company years ago released a product that translated to “Pee Pee Phone.” The search engine Bing avoided trouble in China, where “bing” means “disease” or “crazy,” by adding a syllable to its name.

• Using symbols or images that have different meanings in other countries. Examples include hand gestures, with the “OK” and “thumbs up” gestures being among the most obvious. But use of photos or images of animals also can be troublesome because of their symbolic or religious significance elsewhere.

• Using certain colors. For example, Wooten said, red connotes “joy” in some countries but “mourning” in others.

By Brice Wallace

The Enterprise

For the past few years, many people have predicted a downturn in, if not the death of, the movie industry because of the proliferation of large HDTVs and home theater systems. In spite of that, Megaplex Theatres continues to grow at both new locations and existing sites.

Megaplex Theatres, part of the Larry H. Miller Sports and Entertainment Group, which is owned by the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies, is adding two theaters and two retail food sites at Jordan Commons in Sandy and last week announced it has acquired several Westates locations in Logan, Cedar City and St. George, plus one in Mesquite, Nev.

“We’re moving pretty quickly these days,” said Jeff Whipple, a Megaplex executive over advertising, marketing and public relations. “With all the construction going on at Jordan Commons, the work we’re doing finishing up at Thanksgiving Point, our addition in Centerville and the acquisition of the Westates locations, we’re moving pretty fast at picking up auditoriums, screens and seats.”

Big-D Construction, using designs by FFKR Architects, Jordan Commons’ original designers, is currently renovating space that was originally the Mayan Adventure restaurant into what will become the 19th and 20th auditoriums at that location. Exact seat counts have yet to be determined but likely will be about 300 each when they open at the end of the year. Jordan Commons overall has more than 5,000 seats.

The new auditoriums will have a section of D-Box seats, which move in sync with action on the screen. Those will be the first D-Box seats at Jordan Commons, although Megaplex has them at a few other sites.

“And we will have special event space similar to what we have at The District and at our other locations for handling corporate meetings, parties and banquets,” Whipple said.

The changes also will provide Jordan Commons with space for Cold Stone Creamery and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory retail locations.

The Mayan Adventure restaurant was part of the original Jordan Commons construction. “The Miller family made arrangements with a third-party restaurant company to see if they could manage it differently, but with the economy and everything else, it became a substantial challenge to move it forward,” Whipple said.

“At the same time, the theaters continued to enjoy record success, so the space really did become an asset as what could be done on the theater side of things. Jordan Commons has had national rankings with a number of Hollywood blockbusters, like ‘Twilight,’ the ‘Harry Potters’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ We’ve been at and beyond capacity on a number of opening nights and premiere weeks, so for us it makes sense to do what we can to accommodate guests and offer them the latest amenities like the D-Box seats.”

Although Whipple declined to say how much the company is investing in the project, it comes on the heels of the March 15 opening of the Groove VIP Auditorium in the former arcade space at Jordan Commons. It offers fully reclining seats, concierge in-seat food service, executive lounge with high definition satellite screens and other premium amenities. The 58-seat auditorium has four levels of premium seating and is available for regular movie showings and special private engagements and events.

The Westates acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, includes 11 movie complexes: Providence Stadium 8, University Stadium 6 and Logan Movies 5, all in Logan; Cedar City Stadium 8 and Cedar City Fiddler 6; Pineview Stadium 10, Sunset Stadium 8, Washington Red Cliffs 4, St. George Cinema 6 and St. George Flood Street 4, all in St. George; and Stadium 6 in Mesquite.  Combined, they have 71 auditoriums seating 11,968.

Westates Theatres was founded by the late Tony Rudman Sr. in the 1950s. Starting with the Davis Drive-In in Layton, the chain grew to more than 100 screens at 25 locations in Utah, Idaho, Arizona and Nevada, employing more than 300 full- and part-time people. Westates will continue to operate theatre complexes in Holladay; Elko, Nev.; Page, Ariz.; and Montpelier, Idaho.

The former Westates theaters will be transitioned to Megaplex complexes over the next several months, although details have yet to be completed. “We’re doing our homework right now, and it will likely take some time,” Whipple said. “We will be thoughtful as we approach it and will do it in the best and smartest way possible. We don’t want to disrupt the guest experience as we’re heading into the summer blockbuster season.”

All qualified Westates employees at the acquired locations will be offered positions at Megaplex. Megaplex Theatres expects to create more than 300 positions as part of its ongoing expansion program in Utah and Nevada. Although staffing is seasonal, Megaplex employs more than 600 people across its locations.

“We had been looking at expanding outside our current geographic area for some time,” Whipple said. “We get approached routinely by communities anxious to have the Megaplex theater experience in their communities, and the short list for some time has included Logan and St. George and surrounding areas.”

The Westates acquisition is part of a larger expansion program currently under way at Megaplex Theatres. In the past three years, it has grown from 70 screens in Utah to more than 150 screens in Utah and Nevada. Among other current or recent Megaplex projects are:

• A new 14-screen, 3,000-seat complex at Valley Fair Mall in West Valley City, scheduled to open late this year at the former site of the Mervyns store. It will include an IMAX screen, reserved seating, a food court, D-Box motion seats and private event space.

• Additions at the Megaplex Theatres at Thanksgiving Point. The company acquired the lease agreement from Westates in January 2005. The facility has grown from eight screens to 17 screens and includes an expanded lobby, a food court, D-Box seats and special event space. Construction is expected to be finished in mid-May.

• The new Megaplex Theatres at Legacy Crossing recently opened in Centerville. It features an IMAX screen, D-Box seats and other amenities.

“Especially in the economy we’ve all been working to survive through, it’s great to be part of so many projects and an organization that is moving forward,” Whipple said. “We’ve got quite a bit of activity going on right now, yet on our Facebook page, we posed the question, ‘Where should we go next?’ It makes us smile that the folks in Vernal say, ‘We’re next’ or that Saratoga Springs says, ‘Come on, come on.’”

By Barbara Rattle

The Enterprise

Progrexion, a North Salt Lake-based firm that operates call centers which serve as the marketing arm for companies that provide consumer debt reduction and credit rating improvement services, is planning an expansion into West Valley City.

The firm currently occupies a pair of 14,000 square foot buildings in North Salt Lake — and has operations in Provo and Rexburg, Idaho — but needed additional space because it is hiring roughly 100 new employees per month and expects to continue to do so for the rest of the year, according to company spokesperson Celeste Edmunds-Brady.

Progrexion is anticipating an early May move into approximately 20,000 square feet at 2850 S. Decker Lake Dr., West Valley City. The operation will be staffed by roughly 250 employees who will transfer from the corporate campus in North Salt Lake. Another 250 people will be added to the North Salt Lake operation in the immediate future, and the firm should see a net gain in employment of about 500 people this year, she said.

The company will take the third floor of the Decker Lake Drive building and plans to secure a lease of the first floor. The company currently has about 900 employees.

Founded in 2000, Progrexion’s primary client is Lexington Law Firm, which is also based in North Salt Lake. For 21 years, it has operated on a credit correction platform. Progrexion and Lexington Law do business in all 50 states.

Edmunds-Brady said potential customers are guided to Progrexion in a number of ways. Some come from offline partnerships — for example, auto dealers might steer those with poor credit to Lexington Law — but the majority are simply those who research credit repair online.

“Lexington Law will pull up in the top two searches every time because of how long they’ve been in business,” she said. “Then they call the 800 number and they’re tapped into the Progrexion sales side. We read them the retainer agreement and transfer them to our client.

“Most people don’t have any idea that their credit is really bad until they try to get something,” she said. “Or they’re people who have been able to pay cash for a long time, but when they go to get a loan they realize they have items [on their credit report] that either don’t belong to them or are so old they should have been removed. The unfortunate side of credit is that negative things will be reported quickly, but nothing is automatically taken off. The consumer is the only one that can do that. We have some consumers that proactively do it themselves and we have others that either don’t know how, don’t want to take the time to learn or just don’t have the time, and they hire our clients to make that happen. We want people to understand their rights to credit repair, to know that 83 percent of credit reports usually have errors.”

Customers of Progrexion’s clients are given a login to an online case file and are alerted every time there is a change to their credit report or a letter submitted regarding it, she said. Customers also have six-day-a-week access to paralegals.

Progrexion will hold a job fair at the West Valley site on June 2.

The firm’s CEO is Jeff Johnson, former president and CEO of GMAC Bank, The Prudential Bank & Trust Co., Equifax Secure and Franklin Management Corp.

By Barbara Rattle

The Enterprise

Cornerstone Research & Development Inc., an Ogden-based manufacturer of top-branded vitamins and dietary supplements, has been sold to an affiliate of Boca Raton, Fla.-based Sun Capital Partners Inc. Terms were not disclosed.

The seller of the company, which operates from an approximately 200,000 square foot facility at 900 S. Depot Dr., was Mitsui & Co., a publicly traded Japanese firm that dates back about 100 years. Mitsui purchased Cornerstone in 2004.

Cornerstone CEO Mike Beardall said little will change as a result of the acquisition. Cornerstone will retain its name, location, management and all employees, of whom there are about 350 full time. The company makes use of another 50 to 70 part-time staffers to keep up with fluctuations in demand.

Cornerstone is a leading “pure play” nutrition supplement manufacturer, meaning it does not compete with its customers.

“We manufacture products for other companies and put their logo on the bottle,” Beardall said. He noted a number of the firm’s competitors not only do the same, but then manufacture generics as a side business. Cornerstone does not.

The customers of Cornerstone, which Beardall was unable to identify due to nondisclosure agreements, are “the premier distributors and marketers of dietary supplements throughout the United States,” he said, “and about 20 percent of our business ends up in Southeast Asia. We ship to U.S. locations and they distribute throughout the world, but we actually manufacture products for the U.S., South America, Europe, Asia, Africa — almost every country throughout the world.”

Cornerstone develops, produces and packages more than 500 different capsule, tablet and specialty powder products for its customers. They include vitamin and mineral supplements, botanicals, energy and weight management supplements, probiotics, and anti-aging/general wellness supplements. The company can manage the entire formulation, design and product sourcing process for its customers. Its packaging capabilities include bottles, capsules, tablets, blister cards, pillow-packs and bulk packaging. Its plant is capable of producing more than five billion tablets and capsules annually, making it one of the largest in the industry. The company traces its roots back to 1992.

Beardall said new ownership is welcome.

“The real benefit is it’s U.S. ownership,” he said, “and Sun is very strategic and has growth strategies for every acquisition they make. They plan to grow this business aggressively.”

Sun Capital has prior experience in the nutraceutical industry with former affiliated portfolio company Elan Nutrition, a formulator and manufacturer of snack and nutrition bars.

Sun Capital Partners is a leading private investment firm focused on leveraged buyouts, equity, debt and other investments. Sun Capital affiliates have invested in more than 295 companies worldwide with combined sales in excess of $45 billion since Sun Capital’s inception in 1995. Some of its portfolio companies include American Standard, Bonmarche´, Boston Market, Contessa Premium Foods, Fazoli’s Restaurants, Gerber Childrenswear, Gordmans, Hickory Farms, Limited Stores, Shopko Stores and The Scooter Store.

By Barbara Rattle

The Enterprise

Permalok Corp., a St. Louis-based firm that fabricates and distributes large interlocking steel pipes for underground or “trenchless” construction, has opened a 50,000 square foot plant at 537 W. 600 S., Salt Lake City.

Company CEO Richard Bauman said Salt Lake City was chosen as the firm’s western outpost “because of the fact that a good percentage of our market area is west of Denver, all the way to the coast and Hawaii. It’s an ideal location. And the Salt Lake City area is particularly ideal for us because of the steel background that you already have.”

Ten people are employed at the new Utah plant, although that number couple double, Bauman said, noting Permalok employs 33 in its home state of Missouri.

“We take sheets of plate, thicknesses a half inch to an inch- and-a-half, and roll it into pipe,” he said. “We have a patented connector that joins steel pipe without welding. We have couple of production facilities in St. Louis and ship either by rail or truck.”

Most of the company’s customers use Permalok’s products to deal with water and wastewater. The firm’s pipe producing capabilities range from 30 to 150-inch outside diameter. The Permalok connection is attractive to the trenchless excavation industry because it is designed to be flush with the interior and exterior surfaces of the pipe. Joint quality is further enhanced because the Permalok connector is consistently round, true and perpendicular to the pipe axis. Its unique machined groove makes stabbing and aligning easy and quick.

Permalok leased its Salt Lake plant with the assistance of Michael Jeppesen and Jeremy Jensen of IPG Commercial Real Estate.