The Altoz Inc. facility in Red Lake Falls held a Groundbreaking Ceremony today to mark the beginning of the first of many phases of a multi-phase expansion project of their facility. The event invited local officials of Red Lake Falls and even Senators and Representatives of Minnesota.
The event began with Owners Dennis and Terri Brazier welcoming everyone. They then welcomed Representative John Burkel, who came forward applauding the Braziers and Altoz for playing a role in helping rural Minnesota by expanding their business to help people get jobs and help communities grow with housing and childcare. “I know that we’re having some long-term discussions on solving some of these workforce/housing issues plaguing small towns in Northwestern Minnesota along with childcare and equalization issues, trying to figure out how to get people into that business,” said Representative John Burkel. “Especially since the pandemic, we’ve seen many people leave their jobs, and we need folks in daycare and coming up here to build houses if we want people to stay in our rural communities.”
Altoz Director of Operations Mike Hugg explained some of the plans Altoz had with the newly expanded facilities, including the addition of up to 150 new jobs.
“We’re currently just breaking ground today. We had meetings with our contractors, GW & Sons Construction. We met with them this morning and all the independent contractors that are working for them to pan out the final details. The dirt work will probably start in about a week, and then they’ll start digging in roads and backfilling soon after,” said Altoz Director of Operations Mike Hugg. He also explained that he believed that the building should be enclosed by November, with heating installed in December, and be fully operational with 150 employees by January 2023. “This facility will be hiring management level supervisors, job technicians, engineering, marketing, all aspects of the company will be here,” Hugg explained. “All of these that are currently here, we’ll be filling them up as soon as we can find the people, and we are going to start advertising here shortly.” While this facility expansion is the first of four, Dennis Brazier revealed that the other three phases will add more to the facility in Red Lake Falls over the next five to 10 years, depending on sales growth. “The building was designed so that we could add to it in three different directions, and the next step would probably be the façade on the front, then we would add on to the west, then the south after that,” said Brazier. “But there’s no specific timeframe for the next phases. We’ll do those as they’re needed.” Director of Operations Mike Hugg then revealed that according to a two-year plan, they hope to begin the second phase sometime in 2024.
Pictures of the ceremony and the facility’s expansion plan can be seen below.
