Melaleuca unveils plans for $50 million office complex

An artist's rendering of the new Melaleuca office building

Despite generous offers to relocate, Melaleuca is in eastern Idaho to stay, company president and CEO Frank VanderSloot said Tuesday.

VanderSloot announced the company is breaking ground on a $50 million, 371,000-square-foot corporate headquarters south of Idaho Falls, scheduled to be completed in spring 2014. Melaleuca, which sells vitamins, personal care and household items worldwide through a person-to-person network of "marketing executives," has been steadily growing for the past 12 years on land near Interstate 15 Exit 113. The new building will be triple in size the amount of office space the company has.

The company also has research and development, manufacturing and a large distribution warehouse in and around Idaho Falls, as well as a 600-person call center in Rexburg. While he conceded that distance and transportation expenses put eastern Idaho at a disadvantage for large scale manufacturing, VanderSloot said the region's business climate and work force are pluses that kept the company here.

Situated on 43 acres, the new office will be home to Melaleuca's international and domestic business offices. It will include a 500-person call center, a 17,000-square-foot events area and a state-of-the-art video production studio.

The stage for expansion was set in July with the announcement of a $399,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to Bonneville County for sewer line extensions, a lift station and roadway widening. Melaleuca contributed $1 million of its own money to the project, bringing its total infrastructure investment in the area to $2.3 million.

Bonneville County Commissioner Roger Christensen hailed the arrangement between the county and Melaleuca as "what a public-private partnership should look like. Other company a looking at coming in here. It's a bright spot for economic development in the county."

The general contractor on the new office project is Bateman-Hall and Harper-Leavitt is the engineering company. "We want to use local contractors whenever possible," VanderSloot said.

He said he expected new jobs to result from the new project, but declined to say how many. The company, which passed the $1 billion sales mark in 2011, comes up with seven or eight new products a year.






 

Manpower survey forecasts steady job market for Idaho in 2013

Employers in Idaho expect to hire at a solid pace during the first quarter of 2013, according to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

From January to March, 19 percent of the companies interviewed plan to hire more employees, while 7 percent expect to reduce their payrolls. Another 69 percent expect to maintain their current staff levels and 5 percent are not certain of their hiring plans. This yields a net employment outlook of 12 percent.

“Employers’ hiring expectations for Quarter 1 2013 are slightly stronger compared to Quarter 4 2012 when the net employment outlook was 10 percent,” said Manpower spokeswoman Sunny Ackerman. “Compared to one year ago when the net employment outlook was 7 percent, employers are more optimistic about their staffing plans.”

For the coming quarter, job prospects appear best in construction, nondurable goods manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, financial activities, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality. Employers in durable goods manufacturing, transportation and utilities and education and health services plan to reduce staffing levels, while hiring in information, other services and government is expected to remain unchanged.

Melaleuca to announce expansion plans Tuesday

Melaleuca plans to announce Tuesday a new 371,000-square-foot home office on the land it owns near I-15 Exit 113 on 65^th South.
The company is centralizing many of its Idaho operations there. The new home office will be three times larger than its current space. Melaleuca expects the new office to be ready by spring of 2014. The company is already awarding construction work to local contractors.

At a press conference Tuesday, Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot plans to discuss how the company’s growth is causing the need for more administrative, manufacturing and distribution space. VanderSloot will also announce future plans for additional expansion.

Polaris Industries acquires Rigby-based KLIM

Snowmobile giant Polaris Industries announced Thursday it has bought Teton Outfitters, the privately owned, Rigby-based company that designs, develops and distributes KLIM Technical Riding Gear.

Calendar year 2012 sales for KLIM are anticipated at nearly $30 million. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"The KLIM acquisition provides yet another growth opportunity for our (parts, garments and accessories) business, a key contributor to Polaris' top-line growth and profitability," said Steve Eastman, Polaris' vice president of PG&A. "KLIM is an established leader in the powersports apparel market with a strong track record of providing innovative, premium technical riding gear to a broad range of consumers."

Polaris will maintain the KLIM brand positioning and name while continuing to drive its existing apparel brands. KLIM will continue operations in Rigby with its current staff. Polaris has plans to establish the Rigby facility as its new apparel Center of Excellence, bringing the unmatched capabilities, expertise and knowledge housed in Rigby to all Polaris branded apparel.

"I built KLIM with a passion for the category and a commitment to the world's adventure snowmobile and motorcycle riders," said Justin Summers, KLIM founder, president and CEO. "KLIM will now have the resources to reach the next level as we continue to innovate and lead into the future."

For a profile of KLIM's facility and business culture, here is its YouTube video:

Photos of select KLIM products are available at this link: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50499525&lang=en

Bonneville County home sales, prices rise in 2012

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The latest home sales numbers for Bonneville County show improvement over last year. More homes are selling and the median price has gone up.

The number of homes sold through the end of October this year was up almost 18.3 percent from the same period in 2011. Median home prices were also up significantly, over 6.6 percent.

But it's going to be some time before the numbers climb back to where they were before the economic collapse of 2007-2008. Historic figures show that sales through the end of October this year were two-thirds of what they were in the same period of 2007. The median home price this year was nearly 10 percent lower than what it was in 2007. Likewise, homes were selling faster in 2007 by an average of 39 days.