DH Designs will expand

FORT COLLINS — DH Designs Inc., a locally based manufacturer of specialty signs, is preparing a building plan submission to the city of Fort Collins for a new 22,500-square-foot facility.

The building would be sited kitty-corner to the company’s current location at 1220 Blue Spruce Drive in north Fort Collins. DH Designs likely will lease out its old, 16,000-square-foot facility after the new one is built to accommodate future growth, company president Rochelle Hemstreet said.

In the 15 years since Hemstreet’s husband, Dennis, founded the company, DH Designs has grown from $500 in sales in 1985 to just shy of $2 million in 1999, “and growth has been around 13 percent (per year) over the last few years,´ said Hemstreet.

The company currently employs 34 people, and likely will add another six with the move — which could be a year or more away.

“Ideally I would hope it happens at the end of the year,” Hemstreet said, “but realistically I’d say sometime next year. Evidently with the new changes in the city code it’s tougher and tougher to get things built.”

The approval process for numerous projects in Fort Collins has been slowed by the oft-cited changes in land use codes, but the prognosis for DH Designs’ submission is good.

“I’d say the chances of it not being approved are awfully remote,´ said Alan Hauser, an architect with Architecture One, which is designing the new facility and working with Fort Collins planners to see it through approval. “Although the project is subject to the new land use codes, the requirements aren’t all that stringent.”

Construction of the new facility, when approved, likely will move forward in a design-build direction with Sinnett Builders Inc. of Fort Collins taking the lead, Hauser said.

DH Designs manufactures specialty signs for an account-base of approximately 590 clients nationwide, but few end-users ever encounter the DH Designs name.

Many of the company’s clients are sign manufacturers that contract with DH Designs for special jobs; the “manufacturer’s manufacturer” is an anonymous niche, Hemstreet said. “We never put a tag on anything we make, so the end user doesn’t know we make it.”

The company is exploring some new product ideas, including neon lights and wall sconces, that use the same manufacturing equipment to yield higher profit margins. But some things in the DH Designs operation will never change.

“We will always be a sign manufacturer,” Hemstreet said. “That’s our business. We help make other sign companies what they are.”

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