Having outgrown its 30,000-square-foot warehouse in Baker and bursting at the seams of its Baton Rouge showroom in the storage area of the Plaza Americana development off Airline Highway, ProSource Wholesale Floorcoverings is planning to construct a 44,575-square-foot warehouse off O’Neal Lane.
ProSource sells several types of flooring like tile, wood and vinyl, as well as kitchen and bathroom countertops, hardware and cabinets.
Ryan Kennedy, who owns ProSource and Menzie Flooring & Stone Co. with his parents and siblings, says the family hopes to begin work on the foundation at 16575 Commercial Ave. by mid-April and move into the facility before the end of the year. Work is ongoing on the layout of the warehouse, Kennedy says. Construction is estimated to cost about $1.25 million, according to a construction permit.
“It’ll be a bigger facility and more central to where our business is,” Kennedy says, adding the family plans to sell or lease its Baker warehouse following construction, but will retain its Baton Rouge showroom at 10414 Plaza Americana Drive.
The bigger warehouse will allow the company to bring in more types of flooring, countertops and other products, and keep more of those products in stock, Kennedy says. The O’Neal warehouse will have about 1,500 square feet of office space. The company also may sell some tools for installing flooring and countertops at the warehouse for customers who pick up their orders at the new warehouse.
“We won’t have a showroom with samples to pick out,” Kennedy says of the O’Neal location.
The family already has built a fabrication shop and office for Menzie Flooring & Stone Co. on the same Commercial Avenue property after acquiring the 6.62-acre property for more than $940,000 in two separate deals about four years ago.
ProSource has stores in Gonzales; New Orleans; Hammond; Nashville; Mobile, Alabama; and Jackson, Mississippi, so the ability to jump on Interstate 12 at O’Neal Lane or Interstate 10 via the I-10/I-12 split to transport products to the other stores—as opposed to having to drive down from Baker—is also a bonus.
Kennedy says his family has been tossing around the idea of moving the Baton Rouge showroom to the Commercial Avenue property, but no final decisions have been made. They have the space to add one more building on the site, he notes, adding they are also talking over other ideas and places.
—Ryan Broussard
