Andersen Corp. began construction of a $35 million expansion in Cottage Grove, Minn., to meet demand for its Renewal by Andersen line of windows.
The Bayport, Minn.-based company first built the site in 1995 to launch the Renewal line of replacement windows, which are made from its patented composite vinyl/wood fiber composite called Fibrex.
The latest expansion calls for a 350,000-square-foot facility — a so-called "value add center" — to provide warehouse, office and distribution space. The existing manufacturing facility will then be reorganized for future production.
"The new Value Add Center will allow us to free up space in our production facility, so we can add additional manufacturing lines in the near future." Paul Delahunt, President of Renewal by Andersen, told Plastics News in an email.
The expansion will create 125 new jobs to "support the rapid growth of this business," Andersen Chairman and CEO Jay Lund said in a news release. Positions will be added in the next few years as new warehouses open and production lines fire up. The bulk of the new jobs will be in manufacturing.
"This expansion is a strategic opportunity to increase our capacity to meet growing customer demand for our signature full-service window replacement services," Delahunt said. "This is an exciting time for Renewal as we celebrate the growth of our business."
In the residential window market, 54 percent of the total demand in 2019 is expected to be come from remodeling and replacement jobs compared to 46 percent for new construction, according to a fenestration market study released earlier this year by the American Architectural Manufacturers Association. This market is expected to increase by about 3 percent in 2020, the Schaumburg, Ill.-based group said.
"We have seen growing a demand for our replacement window products coast to coast," Delahunt said in the email. "Our customers choose us because we offer a start-to-finish installation process, and a superior product made with our exclusive Fibrex composite material, which is backed by one of the most robust limited warranties on the market which covers the windows and our installation."
To keep up with demand for Renewal, Andersen has invested in Cottage Grove over the years. In April 2015, the privately held company announced it was spending $38 million at the site to build a 125,000-square-foot addition onto the manufacturing plant and equip it. That expansion, which was completed in 2016, added 200 new jobs.
About 900 employees currently work at Cottage Grove. The latest expansion is expected to wrap up next summer.