Accra-Fab Plans New Facility

Sat., April 15, 2000

By Lorie Hutson lorieh@spokesman.com (509) 459-5446

The booming technology market is smiling on more than just the virtual businesses of the Web.

A Spokane Valley company that specializes in making precision sheet metal parts for the electronics, telecommunications and medical industries is finalizing plans to built a new $6 million production center in Liberty Lake.

Don Hemmer, president of Accra-Fab, said the 20-year-old business has doubled in size in the past three years and is expecting continued growth.

“One only needs to look at what is happening with the dot coms and the electronics companies lately,” Hemmer said. “That is what really drives our market.”

Construction of Accra-Fab’s new 150,000-square-foot production plant will start July 15 on 23.5 acres at the Liberty Lake Center, near Molter Road and Appleway Avenue.

Accra-Fab will be a part of the 99-acre business park already occupied by such companies as Land Rover Spokane and Foretravel, a luxury RV manufacturer.

Metropolitan Mortgage and Securities is developing the Liberty Lake Center.

When the production plant is finished next spring, Accra-Fab will move out of the two buildings it now occupies nearby in Liberty Lake. The business leases space at 1611 N. Molter Road and has an additional 15,000 square feet in a building on Appleway.

Right now, Accra-Fab employs 325 people, but the work force will grow to about 400 by May 2001, when the new production center is finished, Hemmer says.

Accra-Fab also has a second, smaller plant in Vancouver, Wash. That plant opened in 1984.

Hemmer expects the new plant in Liberty Lake to accommodate Accra-Fab’s growth for anywhere from three to 20 years. The site has room for another building with up to 340,000 square feet of space when it is needed.

Wolfe-Ballantyne Studio Architects of Spokane is designing the concrete building, which has been given a temporary address of 23201 E. Appleway.

Hemmer said the final price tag on the new production facility, including land, is expected be about $9.5 million.

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