Purcell Systems to lease additional space in SBIP
By Linn Parish
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS
On track to more than double its revenues this year, Purcell Systems Inc. is leasing additional space in the Spokane Business & Industrial Park, just seven months after moving to new, larger quarters there, says company President and CEO Pete Chase.
The Spokane Valley-based maker of outdoor telecommunications-equipment cabinets moved last April into an 82,000 square-foot building at 16125 E. Euclid, in the business park portion of the big park, from smaller quarters in Liberty Lake. Earlier this month, the company leased an additional 51,000 square feet of warehouse space in the industrial portion of the park, roughly a quarter-mile north of its operations on Euclid, giving it a total of 133,000 square feet of space.
“We were looking for a Frisbee or something when we moved into this place,” Chase says of the company’s main space on Euclid. “We had so much space. We didn’t think we’d fill it this quickly.”
The company, however, now needs more warehouse space after a surge in sales during the last half of this year which Chase attributes mainly to further penetration into its principal market, which is supplying wireless carriers.
Purcell has grown quickly in that sector in recent years, Chase says. He declines to disclose revenue figures, but says the company will more than double its sales this year compared with 2004 , after doubling its revenues last year.
In October, Inc. magazine ranked Purcell as the 21st fastest growing private company in the U.S. and reported that the company had a 2,273 percent growth in sales between 2002, which was its third year in business, and 2004.
Chase says Purcell currently has 138 full-time employees and 120 temporary workers. That’s up from 95 employees and no temps at this time last year, he says. All but seven of its workers work in the Spokane area.
Next year, Chase says, the company hopes to continue to grow by both selling more cabinets to the “regional Bells,” which are the companies that provide telephone service, and increasing its market share in the wireless sector.
Also, Purcell plans to boost its international presence. This past fall, the company contracted with a manufacturer in Poland that will make Purcell’s cabinets for customers in Europe. Chase says the company currently is looking to hire a handful of engineers to work in Poland with that contract manufacturer.
Currently, Purcell is working to forge similar relationships with contract manufacturers in Mexico, Brazil, and China.