On Wednesday, July 15th at 9 am, PACE Engineering broke ground on its new headquarters in the City of Redding’s Stillwater Business Park. City of Redding Mayor, Adam McElvain, City Manager, Barry Tippin, and City of Redding Development Services Director, Larry Vaupel, were in attendance to commemorate this exciting moment for a thriving local business and the community at large.
PACE Engineering is one of three entities to purchase land at Stillwater, but will be the first to break ground at the facility. The local, employee-owned corporation has been in business for over 44 years and has helped to invest more than $250 million into Redding and the greater Northern California economy.
“Stillwater represents the best of both worlds for Pace Engineering. We are able to build a 20,000 square foot, single-story facility at a price that is not influenced by commercial and retail interests. This means there is room for future expansion. The park also provides City of Redding Utilities, which was particularly attractive to us,” said Paul Reuter, Managing Engineer and President of PACE Engineering, Inc.
The park, originally designed to attract national and international businesses from outside the area, has become a growth opportunity for smaller local and regional businesses. The manufacturing and distribution industries have shifted recently to rely on smaller, more regional facilities. Vaupel says the vision for the park is to attract one or two larger facilities and 10 – 12 small-to-medium-sized businesses.
“It’s exciting to know that the best business decision for our company resulted in building our new office in the Stillwater Business Park. As the first to break ground, we are looking forward to the opportunity this provides to grow both PACE and the business park,” says Fred Lucero, Principal Engineer with PACE Engineering, Inc.
“Stillwater Business Park gives local companies an opportunity to expand within the current market – to retain their valuable employees and hire more local people. I hope other existing local businesses see it as a great option for them,” says Larry Vaupel.
Businesses expanding into the facility can do so at a tenth of the cost it would take to build in other California markets. Locally-owned utility services provide reliability of service at rates 30 to 40 percent below privately-owned utilities in other markets. This makes it a cost-effective option for businesses and a unique opportunity to expand their current market or explore a brand new one.
“The City of Redding has done the heavy lifting to get the properties shovel-ready. The environmental process is complete and the infrastructure is in place. That’s hard to find in California. It gives businesses the opportunity to purchase today and begin building tomorrow,” says Vaupel.
Mayor Adam McElvain said, “This is an exciting moment for the business park. We are very thankful to PACE Engineering for making such a substantial investment in our city. Their success is our city’s success.”