The all-new Vermeer MidSouth branch facility is located at 880 Highway 49 South, Richland, Miss.
(Vermeer MidSouth photo)
Vermeer MidSouth moved into its brand-new Richland, Miss., facility early in the summer and have literally "perfected" the entire building and equipment yard space in every aspect.
The new facility boasts more than 28,000 sq. ft., which is 2.5 times larger than its previous facility, and is situated on 6 acres, compared to the previous 4-acre footprint.
Company owner Denny Vander Molen said they were literally running out of parts storage room at the old location and the new facility has completely solved that issue, with space to grow. The adjacent shop area doubled in space as well and quickly solved the service capacity, too.
The new building incorporates a showroom area with space for displaying spontaneous sale consumables, a 32-seat classroom for equipment/machine safety and directional boring training, a large team member break room, second story sales and administration offices and extra space for future growth. To cap off the first class look, the equipment yard is fenced by wrought iron fencing.
Vermeer MidSouth has always made selling parts as easy as possible, and with the expanded stocking area, parts availability with be even greater than ever, the company said. Obtaining parts can be done in three ways: through the shop, over the counter or shipping.
Environmentally conscious features were built into this new facility, including a rainwater run-off system, which channels roof water directly underground to retention ponds and eliminates ground erosion. The actual structure placement and design was planned to take advantage of the positioning of the sun from rising to setting to maximize shop and office lighting throughout the entire day.
At the exterior of each bay, grates were installed below the garage doors to ensure that oil/water does not seep into the equipment yard and that all fluids flowing into the grates are sent to an oil/water separator and recycled.
When asked about the reason for selecting Richland, Vander Molen said, "Richland and Rankin County [Mississippi] seemed to be more business friendly, with taxes and fleet vehicle tags being lower than our previous location. We also wanted to be right in the mix of where all the other dealers are located on Hwy. 49, on ‘equipment row.' The traffic count at our previous location was about 2,500 vehicles per day. Here it's over 50,000 per day thoroughfare and is the second heaviest traffic area in the state of Mississippi. Second only to the Mississippi I-10 corridor between Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans, La.
"We're now in a location that best serves our customers," he added. "It's a high growth area with new business and new residential startups and the people that serve the industry for construction are right here."
Vermeer MidSouth is known for selling premier brands, with Vermeer being the primary line and select Vermeer branded Fecon machines and Finn straw and hydroseeders being the other brands found at this location. Richland, Miss., is one of five branch locations of Vermeer MidSouth and plans over the next couple years are for rebuilds at the Shreveport, La., and Springdale, Ark., locations.
"I think this new branch serves as a great place to work for our workforce and is a great new environment for our customers to do business with greater ease of access," said Vander Molen. "Our customers in general are very loyal Vermeer customers and we want to be where they need us and be able to provide an appealing environment for them to do business. This isn't a five-year investment. This is a generational investment that will serve our customers for decades. We're very blessed to have a second generation coming in to continue running the organization well into the future."
Vander Molen said 36 years ago Vermeer MidSouth was in a 2,400-sq.-ft. facility on Gymnasium Drive in West Jackson, Miss. Six years later, he moved to a 4,000 sq. ft. location on Greenway Avenue in Jackson and later expanding the facility to 11,000 sq. ft. and doubling the acreage of the facility to 4 acres. Today, the facility is an ultra-modern 28,000 sq. ft.
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