One of Shasta County’s most highly specialized manufacturers is growing its operation.
Ted Pella Inc., which has been in Redding since 1987, wants to build a 30,000-square-foot building that would encompass manufacturing, warehouse and office space on Mountain Lakes Boulevard.
The new building would sit next to its existing plant, which the company will continue to use for administrative offices. The new building is nearly double the size of its existing plant.
Ted Pella’s site development permit request will come before the Redding Board of Administrative Review on Wednesday.
“We hope the shell will be done before it starts raining and then the inside development will take longer, probably several months,” Ted Pella President Tom Pella said of construction.
Ted Pella Inc. makes and sells instruments that serve laboratories that use the equipment for types of microscopy. The company was established in 1968 by Ted and Christel Pella, Tom’s parents, in Altadena before it moved to Redding. Tom Pella
became president in 2010 and took over the ownership of the firm.
The company has 60 employees and Tom Pella says the new plant will give the company the ability to expand its production and workforce. Pella said right now they are looking to hire three people.
“We are the only company west of the Mississippi who does this,” Pella said, “and there are few competitors on the East Coast.”
Pella said the company has doubled over the last five years. The worst recession since the Great Depression did nothing to stop Ted Pella’s growth.
“There are things that we are and things that we are not,” he said. “We are not a bank, a mortgage company or real estate type of entity. We are not involved in construction. All those companies were hit the hardest.”
Ted Pella’s products are used in research and development. Universities, hospitals and various branches of government, domestic and international, use Ted Pella products.
“We sell to practically every four-year college that does research,” Pella said. “What I learned is when times get hard, people kind of hunker down and try to distinguish themselves by making and selling higher-quality products, so we end
up benefitting from that.”
Ted Pella’s site development permit is being reviewed by the Board of Administrative Review because the building is larger than 20,000 square feet, which requires a site development permit in a general industrial district.
Kibler & Kibler Architecture in Redding designed the new building.