Ariens consolidates Midwest distribution ops

December 22, 2016

By Ed Byrne The Brillion News

New mega-warehouse opens just north of Kenosha 

BRILLION – The Ariens Company is consolidating its Midwest distribution operations in a new industrial park in the Village of Somers, wedged between Racine and Kenosha and just off I-94.

Ariens has signed a lease for a 600,000 square foot warehouse and office building and will bring most of its regional warehouse and logistics operations under the same roof there.

Company President/CEO Dan Ariens said the company needs to be able to ship product quickly to fill dealer demands. That’s especially true in the snow blower market, where a major storm can empty a dealership of machines overnight.

The new distribution center will replace several existing warehouses, including one in Kaukauna and another in northern Illinois.

“We are also taking our parts distribution center in Jasper, Indiana, and moving that up to Kenosha,” Dan Ariens said. “It’s really putting four things into one big box.”

The building will have 100,000 square feet of space that Ariens doesn’t need right now, so there is room to grow. Ariens plans to use that extra space in two or three years.

“We want to stage product [there], both incoming from our supply chain and outbound from our manufacturing facilities,” Ariens said. “Eventually, we might be able to use the facility for some light assembly.”

That could mean sub-assembly of incoming materials or some simple outbound products that don’t require a lot of fabrication.

The new distribution center is in the First Park 94 Business Park in the Village of Somers. The village consists of an urbanized area of the Town of Somers.

The Ariens distribution center is the first new tenant in the business park.

The village provided a quarter million dollars in incentives to Ariens, and Kenosha County added $250,000 from its High Impact Fund – a fund designed to seal the deal for a high impact economic development project.

The Village of Somers is building a new spec structure in the park, just west of the building that Ariens is leasing, in the hope of attracting another high impact tenant.

The new distribution center represents the Ariens Company’s focus on logistics – the efficient flow of materials and products.

“We’ll be able to run dedicated truck routes to [the distribution center] from Brillion as well as from our Nebraska plant,” Ariens said.

Please see the complete story in the December 22, 2016 edition of The Brillion News.