Vancouver Sign points to new digs

Vancouver Sign Co. Inc. is moving and expanding into larger headquarters at a time when many companies are scaling back.

It’s all part of the electronic sign manufacturer’s strategy to stay ahead of the economic curve, said Greg Stuart, vice president and co-owner of parent company Vancouver Sign Group, which will also be headquartered in the new space.

“We’ll be poised for the next round of commercial development when it starts up,” said Stuart.

This week’s crosstown move to Andresen Road gives Vancouver Sign more than three times the space of its longtime 10,000-square-foot Hazel Dell site. The new 40,000-square-foot industrial space affords room to design, manufacture and paint commercial signs. It also includes space for the company’s fleet of six service trucks.

“We just didn’t have enough room,” Stuart said of the Hazel Dell site.

o What: Long-time Vancouver business that designs, manufactures and installs electric signs.

o What’s new: Its owners have relocated the company from Hazel Dell to a larger site off Northeast Andresen Road to be better positioned for growth.

o Owners: Dick Miller, president; Greg Stuart, vice president.

o Where: 2600 N.E. Andresen Road, Suite 50, Vancouver.

o Employees: 34.

Stuart has co-owned the business since 2005 with his partner, Dick Miller.

In 2007, the pair had announced plans to develop a new 15,000-square-foot building in Ridgefield, near Interstate 5. But Stuart said his company’s move to leased industrial space was far more cost effective than the $3 million new building investment.

“It just didn’t pencil out,” he said, adding that his company still owns the Ridgefield site, part of the Union Ridge mixed-use development near the DollarTree distribution center.

Vancouver Sign’s projects range in size from neon window signs to electronic message centers, such as Dick Hannah’s Auto Mall reader board for the Vancouver car dealership. The board blasts out visual messages from a height of 30-feet.

Vancouver Sign also produced large signs for several new east Vancouver retailers, such as Lowes and J.C. Penney, Stuart said.

The company was founded in downtown Vancouver shop space in 1923 and moved to Hazel Dell in 1953 by founder and owner Bill Cole. John Hagensen bought the business in 1969 and sold it to his son, Bruce Hagensen in 1981. Stuart and Miller bought the business from Hagensen in 2005.

Stuart hopes the larger headquarters will afford more room for manufacturing efficiency and thus, help his company win bids to produce large-scale projects.

“We’re hoping that we can participate in getting the economy going,” Stuart said.