Fonthill Lumber Expands Operations with New Location in Welland, Canada
Originally Published by: Welland Tribune — June 26, 2024
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Fonthill Lumber, a building concern since it was established in 1951, has also been a growing concern for much of the past three years.
Completion of that ambitious and massive growth, from a 2,320-square-metre (25,000-square-foot) facility on Highway 20 in Fonthill to a sprawling, four-building complex about four times larger on Woodlawn Road in Welland, will be celebrated with a grand opening and open house on Thursday.
Jeff Carruthers is manager of Fonthill Lumber on Woodlawn Road in Welland. Bob Tymczyszyn St. Catharines Standard
That’s when Mayor Frank Campion, headlining a guest list of dignitaries, builders and customers from both sides of the Canada-United States border, is scheduled to cut a ceremonial ribbon, and not a piece of lumber.
However, he easily could use some lumber to commemorate the official opening. With a spur line capable of accommodating 10 rail cars at once — and with each rail car equal to about three truckloads — Fonthill Lumber has a lot of lumber on hand, including custom-made trusses and custom-cut studs.
“Right now, we have the capability of having seven lines — seven tables, per se — to make seven different sets of trusses, plus a four-truss table as well,” manager Jeff Carruthers said.
Besides a manufacturing facility for trusses and an administration building that includes a retail out, the 16.2-hectare site also has what the manager calls the “sawmill.”
“That’s a term that I shouldn’t say too easily. It’s more of a convenience place, we can produce 2x2s, we can also make studs,” Carruthers said. “We can take longer lengths of material and we can cut studs to any size you need.
Fonthill Lumber’s Woodlawn Road operation features a building for manufacturing trusses. Bob Tymczyszyn St. Catharines Standard
“In saying that, we can cut any material you need to size. Some of these houses — especially, the custom houses — have different-sized walls. They could have an 11-foot-high wall.
“Framery doesn’t want to cut every stud on site, so we can do it here for them.”
Until the move to Woodlawn Road, Fonthill Lumber had always been on Highway 20.
“We outgrew it. Fonthill is growing and they were looking for more residential area there,” Carruthers said of the former site which is now home to housing. “We were just kind of in the way.
“We needed a bigger facility as well.”
Given the strength of the brand, there was some concern about relocating.
“Everyone — especially, the local people — knows where Fonthill Lumber was. They knew it was that lumber yard on Highway 20,” he said. “But the biggest concern we had was keeping the name because Fonthill Lumber has been around for that long. Everyone knows who Fonthill Lumber is, everybody knows the quality you get from Fonthill Lumber and the service you get from Fonthill Lumber.”
The new location is still easily accessible near Highway 406.
“It’s good for us. Being close to the highway, we can get anywhere in Niagara in a fairly quick amount of time. Some of our customers are actually over the border as well, so we can actually have access to the border from here as well,” said Carruthers, who has been with Fonthill Lumber, a division of the ALPA Lumber Group of companies, since 2011.
ALPA, which is based in Mississauga and has 17 operations as far east as Ottawa and as far west as Cambridge, had an eye toward the future when it chose to expand Fonthill Lumber.
Fonthill Lumber manager Jeff Carruthers inside its Welland retail store. Bob Tymczyszyn St. Catharines Standard
“The only way to grow is to get bigger. We know that there is going to be this potential in Niagara,” Carruthers said. “There is a lot of new building going on currently and in the future, we know there is going to be more as well.
“There is nothing like this in Niagara. We figured we should do it.”
The workforce numbers 50 to 55 people but “we can easily have at least 200 people here.”
Initially, only one shift will be working. While a second shift may be needed, Carruthers can’t foresee a time trusses will be manufactured around the clock.
“Because of the state-of-the-art machinery that we have here — especially, for the trusses — that won’t really be necessary,” he said of a need for a third shift. “We have the capability of producing quite a bit in a short amount of time.
“We’re not going to need the shift work as much. I know in the old yard we used to do shift work all the time.”
Fonthill Lumber sources wood from across Canada.
“The majority of it comes from out East, but we do have stuff come in occasionally from out West. Some of the bigger material, like 2x10, 2x12, comes from the West.”
Fonthill Lumber is geared toward catering to the construction trades.
“The majority of it is contractors, builders. I would say 85, 90 per cent of it. Even out of the retail, the contractors are still going to be going to my retail portion of it,” he said. “Plain retail? It’s a small portion of it.
“We’ll always take more, but right now maybe 10 to 15 per cent is retail.”
Local builders have been invited to the grand opening as have some builders from out of town “who we know could possibly be developing in Niagara.”
“We’ve also invited some of our customers from western New York.”