Nelson Motors and Equipment’s employees and customers are enjoying the benefits of the new building for the agriculture implements dealership.
Alf Tide, who is the sales/store manager with Nelson Motors, said the business moved into the new building on Nov. 16. It’s located just a few feet from their old home.
“We built it as close as we could … while still operating in the other one,” Tide said in an interview with Agri News.
The new building gives Nelson Motors significantly more space than before. Tide estimates it’s about 40,000 square feet. Their old parts and sales building was 6,000 square feet.
“The new building is really nice,” said Tide. “Our shop went from six bays to 16 bays. We have a crane throughout the shop, so it makes it a lot easier for pulling stuff out. We can pick from almost any spot in the back shop with our crane.”
Nelson Motors will be retaining the old service building.
The front show room area and the parts room are likely three or four times larger than what the dealership had previously, he said.
Customers have been impressed with Nelson Motors new home, thanks to the added size and additional services and employees that can be offered.
“Our business has really grown, as has everything in agriculture in the last 10 years,” said Tide. “Things have really changed in our industry. And of course there is getting to be fewer dealers around, too. A lot of the smaller centres are losing their dealers, so that just makes more business.”
The equipment is getting bigger, too, so a bigger building was needed, he said.
There are safety upgrades as well, and functional improvements.
“We have a new oil system now that we can deliver oil to any machine in the building through a central tank,” said Tide. “We have one tank that we use for selling oil out to customers at parts, and then we have four dispensers in the shop that can reach any point in the shop to put oil into machines.”
Employees are also happy with the new building, because they have more room to operate.
“On the one side, our door is 50 feet, so we can actually bring an 80-foot or 90-foot air drill into our shop and unfold it and work on it, which we could never do before,” said Tide.
The extra show room space is also advantageous, because there’s so much equipment they can show.
Tide noted the old parts and sales building will be sold to a local farmer, who will move it to their farm.
He hopes Nelson Motors new building will last as long as the old one, since it was built in 1973.
