FM Stone Commercial Hires Broker Scott Griffith

FM Stone Commercial, a local commercial real estate services firm, and its parent company, The Tiedemann Group, are proud to announce the hiring of a new employee at the corporate headquarters in downtown Elkhart. Scott Griffith was named Commercial Real Estate Broker. The Tiedemann Group is an an organization of interrelated companies providing an array of real estate and construction services throughout the Midwest. In addition to FM Stone Commercial, the Tiedemann Group of companies includes FM Stone Construction, J. Wilsey Appraisal Co., Tiedemann Realty Services, Tiedemann Wines, Eastpoint Business Centre and Lexington Business Centre.

As a Commercial Real Estate Broker, Scott specializes in the leasing, buying and selling of all types of commercial properties in Northern Indiana. Prior to joining FM Stone, Scott worked part time for another commercial real estate company in Fort Wayne where he represented properties in Elkhart and St. Joseph counties. Before deciding to pursue a full-time career in commercial real estate with FM Stone, Scott spent more than 15 years working in the concrete industry. Scott and his family live in Goshen. 

FM Stone Assists Pro Custom Paint in Securing Third & Fourth Elkhart Facilities

Bill Kuhns, SIOR, Senior Broker with FM Stone Commercial recently assisted Pro Custom Paint in securing its third and fourth area buildings in three years. Pro Custom Paint’s most recent purchases are two industrial buildings totaling 66,647 SF on 7.4 acres at 57974 & 57976 County Road 3 in Elkhart. This latest purchase will allow owner Mike Suski the opportunity to keep growing and diversifying. And he intends to do just that.

Pro Custom Paint is an automotive paint shop catering primarily to the recreational vehicle market. Clients are manufacturers that produce RVs and need custom paint work on the vehicles. And business has been good for the former member of the Newmar management team who started Pro Custom Paint in September of 2010.

“The plan is to consolidate our existing business under one roof,” Suski said. “We will use one of the new buildings which is roughly 33,000 SF, add a new addition of 25,000 SF and move the operations from our two other buildings under one roof for more efficiency. Then we will take our other two buildings (18,000 SF and 20,800 SF) and create two new businesses. One will focus on paint for smaller parts related to the RV, marine and automotive industry and the other will focus on catering to existing RV owners who want things like special paint jobs or need repair work on their vehicles.”

All four of Suski’s buildings are within a quarter mile of each other. And what will happen with the other building he recently purchased? It will be leased out until Suski needs it. This shouldn’t be long considering how things have moved for him so far. Currently employing 50 people, Suski expects to add another 30 employees by the end the 1Q 2014. He hopes to have everything consolidated under one roof by the end of January 2014. Now all he needs now are employees. 

FM Stone Assists Girard Systems in Securing New Goshen Facility

Bill Kuhns, SIOR, Senior Broker with FM Stone Commercial assisted Girard Systems and Girard Products LLC in leasing 30,800 SF of industrial space at 2515 Lombardy Drive in Goshen. The move into this south side building is due to the company expanding.

“Our business has dramatically increased and we have outgrown our San Clemente, Calif., facility,” said Marcia Girard, CEO and President of Girard. “Our goal is to be closer to our customers and provide faster service. We have moved Girard Products’ entire Tankless Water Heater operation to Goshen and we will be doing all R&D, testing and order processing and shipping from this location starting in November. We have many new innovative products in development and being in Goshen will allow us to work closely with our OEM customers in their development.”

A leader of green technology in the RV Industry, Girard Products specializes in responsible components that reduce energy consumption, are recyclable, feature dependable long term performance and help reduce the carbon footprint. The Girard Tankless Water Heater is designed to provide endless hot water on demand unlike storage tank water heaters which require time to recover after running out of hot water. More than 30 brands of major RVs are now offering the Girard Tankless Water Heater on their 2013 and 2014 models either as an option or as standard equipment. Girard Systems also has new awnings in development and will begin to expand certain awning and shade production in its new Goshen facility after the first of the year.

FM Stone’s Ross Miller, SIOR, represented the building owners, MFUS Holding, LLC, in the lease transaction. 

FM Stone Assists Elkhart’s TK Steel in the Purchase of 61,125 SF

Brent Miller, SIOR, Senior Vice President with FM Stone Commercial sold the industrial building at 57433 Nagy Drive in Elkhart to TK Steel of Elkhart. Buying the 61,125-square- foot industrial facility on 6 acres provides TK Steel with additional room to grow its business which supplies steel products to RV, cargo and truck manufacturers.

Owners Tim and Karmin Utley, who founded TK Steel in 2011, were previously leasing space in Elkhart and decided that it was time to take advantage of the market and to buy a larger building that will be able to accommodate their operations for a number of years. The seller of the building, Elk Components, was purchased by another Elkhart company and was absorbed into the new organization. 

FM Stone Sells Wakarusa’s Utilimaster Complex to Forest River

FM Stone Commercial’s Brent Miller, SIOR, and Carl Tiedemann, SIOR, represented Utilimaster Corporation, a Spartan Motors company, in the sale of 13 industrial buildings totaling 510,350 square feet on its Wakarusa, Indiana, campus. The company, which is moving to a new location in Bristol, sold 13 of the campus’ 14 buildings to Forest River. Forest River’s new buildings sit on 91.02 acres on State Road 19 in Wakarusa. FM Stone’s Pete Letherman, SIOR, CCIM, represented Forest River, a Berkshire Hathaway company, in the sale.

The buildings were on the market for just over 9 months and were being exclusively represented by Elkhart’s FM Stone Commercial. Buildings range in size from 10,590 square feet to 90,270 square feet and were part of one of Wakarusa’s largest manufacturing facilities.

“The sale of the Wakarusa facility represents an important step in the transition of Utilimaster’s operations to Bristol,” said John Sztykiel, President and CEO of Spartan Motors, Inc. “As we finalize the move and ramp up production, we expect the new, modern plant to support Utilimaster’s long-term growth and enable us to achieve our potential in Delivery and Service Vehicles.”

The move to Bristol, Indiana, located 20 miles northeast of Wakarusa, will consolidate Utilimaster's operations into one 425,000-square-foot facility from its current campus of multiple buildings. Moving into a single plant, combined with lean manufacturing practices, is expected to help enable Utilimaster to improve product quality and manufacturing efficiency, and is also expected to save the company up to $4 million annually.

One building on the Wakarusa campus is still available for sale through FM Stone Commercial. This 3- story 30,150 SF office building on 4.18 acres features an elevator, a climate-controlled computer room, covered loading dock, six rest rooms, heavy power, and geo-thermal heating and air conditioning.