John Wolfe, the company's former CEO and current "executive adviser," said the company plans to start building its new store in early May and that they hope to be open in the fall. It will be about 10,000 square feet and much like the company's stores in Boise and Twin Falls.
The biggest challenge was finding a buyer for the lanes inside the old Plaza Lanes building, which has to be torn down before any new construction can begin. The wood is being cut up and shipped to a business in the southeastern United States that fabricates old lanes into table and bar tops.
"I've learned a lot about bowling lanes on this job," Wolfe said. One thing he didn't know was that maple is used for the parts of the lane where people let go of the ball and where the pins are set up. That's because it has to stand up to more punishment. In the middle section where the balls simply rolls, the lane is made of softer wood, like pine or fir.
Wolfe said he knew very little about Idaho Falls before checking the market out as a possible store location, but that he has been "impressed a lot by the upscale nature of development in the area."
Tacoma Screw Products has a very diversified customer base that includes retail, manufacturing, construction, transportation, aerospace, maritime, agricultural, food processing, recreational, institutional operations, and city, county, state, and federal governmental agencies. When customers need custom or special fasteners that are oversized, require special threading or bending, the company has a machine shop to fabricate them.
The company typically employs three or four people to work in a store and three or four people to handle outside sales.
Here's a link to a story about the company that ran last fall in the Tacoma News Tribune: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/10/28/2347441/tacoma-screw-broadens-its-sales.html.
And here's the link to their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tacomascrew
