Building supply company moving in near airport

Apparently the air show isn't the only thing going on south of Cape Girardeau around Interstate 55 this summer.

Negwer Materials Inc. recently announced it will be opening a regional distribution center at 1816 E. I-55 Outer Road across the interstate from the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport. The Cape Girardeau location will be the St. Louis-based wholesale building supply company's 10th location in Missouri and Illinois. It will serve parts of the five-state area.

"We chose Cape Girardeau because it is a regional hub," said Scott Negwer, president of the third-generation company. "We see it as a great business opportunity."

Tom Kelsey, commercial broker with Lorimont Place Ltd. who handled the transaction, said that Negwer will not only occupy the existing showroom warehouse at 1816 on the Outer Road, formerly occupied by NES, a rental equipment company, but it will also immediately start construction of an additional 10,000-square-foot warehouse. That development will bring the total facility size to 17,400 square feet. It will also bring at least six new jobs.

Negwer Materials isn't your typical lumberyard. The company distributes specialty building materials, such as a complete line of wall and ceiling products.

Negwer said he feels this region is vastly underserved in the specialty building materials market. He hopes his company can fill that need for Southeast Missouri and the surrounding region, which he termed a growing area.

Negwer Materials is itself a growing business. Already the largest supplier of interior construction products in the region, the 60-year-old Negwer Materials already has locations in Illinois at Belleville, Springfield, Normal, Decatur, Peoria, Urbana and Chatham, and one in Missouri at Columbia.

Negwer said that he expects the newest location to be open in three to four weeks. He said the outlet will open at limited capacity, operating out of the existing building while the new warehouse is built. He said he anticipates that new structure to be complete and the outlet to be running at full strength by mid-September.

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137