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Aug 19, 2023

Wildeck expansion means increased business footprint, community and customer relationships

Wildeck relocated its Waukesha and Pewaukee facilities, operations and employees

Wildeck relocated its Waukesha and Pewaukee facilities, operations and employees to the former Eaton property at 1900 E. North St. It is a leading manufacturer of material lift, warehouse mezzanine, industrial safety gates and more. Company growth has prompted Wildeck to move their corporate headquarters to a larger facility.

WAUKESHA — For over 45 years, Wildeck has grown through an experienced network of nationwide dealers and systems integrators, according to company president Dan Lorenz.

Wildeck, founded in 1976, is a leading manufacturer of material lift, warehouse mezzanine, industrial safety gates and more.

The company has relocated its Waukesha and Pewaukee facilities, operations and employees to the former Eaton property at 1900 E. North St.

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"Finding the right location has been the challenge for us and right size location. Moving into this single campus, we will have over 300,000 square feet of space now. That is pretty substantial," Lorenz said.

The company is not only expanding operations in Waukesha but also in their Arizona facility. They are tripling the size of the Arizona facility to help meet customers’ needs in that region as well.

The Waukesha campus provides complete onsite support from engineering, operations, and administration.

"We have invested in our sales and marketing efforts over the last couple of years and really focused on improving customer experience. The one area we wanted to focus on was consolidating all manufacturing operations into one facility and one campus just to be more efficient and service their needs better," Lorenz said.

Within the company there was a need to communicate more efficiently between the engineering and other departments.

Company growth prompted Wildeck to move their corporate headquarters to a larger facility.

The Waukesha facility is more than three times the size of the existing facility and is over 21.97 acres. Wildeck will build a new corporate office and Innovation Center, with plans to open in early 2024.

They are in the process of demolishing the two office buildings on the property to make way for the corporate office.

The company has invested a great deal of capital dollars into the North Street Facility (Former Eaton site) with a heavy focus on automation, innovation and technology, according to Lorenz.

Plans for the expansion predated the pandemic and were in the works for some time.

Due to COVID, the material handling industry expanded due to the increase in online shopping.

Lorenz added when the pandemic hit it took everyone away from the box stores and everyone began to do online shopping since stores were closed. It drove up the demand for increased warehouse and distribution within the material handling industry.

"We supply a lot of the mezzanines and vertical material lifts in those facilities. So our business boomed as well during COVID. Secondarily, the need for automation of those processes due to the lack of manpower available in the industry," Lorenz said.

The labor shortage is one of the reasons Wildeck is building a new corporate building. Manpower is still a challenge, with additional automation planned to help remedy it.

They are designing a customer experience center to bring people in. The corporate office building is scheduled to start construction in June and open in June 2024.

It will incorporate a new Customer Experience Center and Training Facility.

"The new space will offer enhanced working conditions to help with the current manpower challenges, while the investment in innovation, automation, and technology will provide increased output to solve some of the manpower and employment rate challenges. The office will incorporate a new Customer Experience Center and Training Facility. The world class office setting is being built featuring many of Wildeck's products throughout the office. It will also improve customer education with a new high tech. training facility and onsite research and development center to help collaborate directly with our customers on product enhancement or new product developments," Lorenz said. Wildeck is an employee-owned company and has over 250 employees.

The new office will also help retaining and attracting top talent that resides in the Waukesha and surrounding communities as Wildeck continues to hire.

The new corporate office will offer an inviting office setting that welcomes employee owners and provides them with a workspace and setting to include a place for visitors to set up remote office access, high top collaboration areas, soft seating meeting and discussion areas, high tech conference rooms, local cafe areas, a game room, patios, outdoor work zones, and open setting with views overlooking Waukesha and the Fox River.

"We want our office to be inviting for our employee owners and offer an open concept, collaborative, and creative work environment. Our goal is to provide an environment that drives innovative thought day in and day out," Lorenz said.

The reason for moving to Waukesha had to do with the support from Mayor Shawn Reilly and city staff along with support from the Waukesha County Business Alliance, said Lorenz.

"They have been extremely supportive of this project from day one for us," he said.

Waukesha approved $750,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding to be used for Wildeck to expand operations.

"The initial $750,000 will assist the company with the necessary upgrades to the manufacturing space on the property so they can begin to move their production to the site. The TIF agreement will assist with new office space and continued upgrades needed on the site to make a modern manufacturing facility," according to city documents.

Wildeck relocated its Waukesha and Pewaukee facilities, operations and employees to the former Eaton property at 1900 E. North St. It is a leading manufacturer of material lift, warehouse mezzanine, industrial safety gates and more. Company growth has prompted Wildeck to move their corporate headquarters to a larger facility.

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