Sticker Giant eyes possible move to Broadway Motors site as dealership looks to Weld

LONGMONT — One Longmont business is gearing up to leave its digs at 880 Weaver Park Road, while a Hygiene company is weighing whether to move into the spot and bring 31 jobs with it.

An investment entity led by Sticker Giant founder and chief executive John Fischer closed recently on the $1.25 million purchase of 880 Weaver Park Road from Broadway Motors’ owner Jerry Morrison.

Broadway Motors is planning to break ground next month on a new facility east of the city in unincorporated Weld County at 1460 Vista View Drive. That property is in the Vista Commercial Center that sits along the south side of Colorado Highway 119.

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Sticker Giant, meanwhile, is quickly running out of space at its current home at 11755 N. 75th St. in Hygiene. Fischer told BizWest this week that he’s hoping Sticker Giant — known largely for producing promotional stickers — will be able to lease the Weaver Park Road property from the purchasing entity, 880 Weaver Park Road LLC. But he said it’s not a done deal and that the company could still land elsewhere.

“We’re hoping,” Fischer said. “We like the location.”

Fischer said the 12,000-square-foot building — roughly double the size of Sticker Giant’s current digs — would be a suitable site for the company. But he said there’s a significant amount of buildout that would need to be done to accommodate a move. In addition to weighing buildout costs, he’s waiting to see what kind of incentive package Sticker Giant might be able to land from the city to help offset costs of the buildout.

Primary employers that are new to the city or that are expanding can work with the Longmont Area Economic Council and city officials to apply for incentives that primarily include rebates of building permit and development fees and the city taxes associated with them. Once a company like Sticker Giant submits an information packet on a proposed move, LAEC vice president Wendi Nafziger said her organization and the city can generally determine a company’s eligibility and estimate the amount of the rebates the city would grant in as little as a week.

Fischer said he’s explored other possible sites for Sticker Giant east of town and closer to Interstate 25. If the numbers for moving the company to 880 Weaver Park Road don’t work out, he said he’s confident that he can lease the property to another tenant once Broadway Motors moves out.

Sticker Giant’s growth has been fueled in large part by the company’s expansion more and more into packaging and labeling for all kinds of products. New machinery will help expand the company’s capabilities in that regard, but Sticker Giant needs a place to put the new equipment. Fischer said he’s hoping to be able to move the company next spring.

Founded in 2000 out of Fischer’s basement, Sticker Giant has been in Hygiene for about 10 years. The company will do nearly $9 million in revenue this year, up from about $6 million last year.  The company has 31 employees now, but Fischer said that number figures to grow.

“We’re always hiring and growing,” Fischer said.

The impetus for Broadway Motors’ move is also growth. The used-car dealership, which shows all of its vehicles indoors rather than on an outdoor lot, generally has 40 to 45 cars in stock.

Morrison said Broadway’s new building, which he’s hoping to have open by May 1, will be about 35,000 square feet. He expects to close on the purchase of a roughly 3-acre parcel of land for the new building next week, though he declined to disclose the purchase price.

Founded in Boulder in 1975, Broadway Motors moved to Weld County in the 1980s. Morrison has owned the company, which has three employees, for about six years, having moved it to its current location four and a half years ago.

Morrison said the new facility will be able to accommodate about 100 cars, but he said the aim is to have about 65 on hand at any one time.

“We don’t want to get dramatically bigger,” Morrison said. “We like the small feel of not having a lot of sales people here, only us.”