HOLDEN, Maine — The new homes of Granville Rental and Granville Stone & Hearth have popped up along the Main Road but will not be open for business until after the new year, owner Ned Jennings said Monday.
“It’s going along as quickly as possible,” he said. “We should be in the buildings by December of this year.”
The new locale, which will feature a showroom and warehouse on U.S. Route 1A, is about half a mile closer to Brewer from where the two businesses currently are located beside Rhoades Buildings Products Inc.
“We need to replicate everything that we have here and leave room for growth,” Jennings said of the new 25,000-plus square feet of space.
Two years ago Jennings sold Granville Lumber to Chris Rhoades of Falmouth, who changed the name of the lumber business to Rhoades. At that time, Jennings said he wanted to focus on the stone and rental aspects of Granville.
“We knew we were going to be relocated, but did not know to where” or when, Jennings said. The availability of the 10 acres he purchased on the Main Road near Aunt Nellie’s Attic “was something I didn’t expect, and I took advantage of it,” Jennings said.
Visible at the construction site are two buildings. The front building will house the stone and hearth display showroom, and the rear building will be home to the rental business and warehouse.
The move “gets us a little closer to town and makes us part of that Brewer business district,” Jennings said. “We’re the gateway to Holden now.”
With the planned move to a larger facility comes the opportunity to offer new products, Jennings said.
“We are looking for areas to diversify that will complement what we’re already doing,” he said.
For example, the hearth division offers five types of home heating stoves, and “we have a couple of new lines that we just took on,” Jennings said. “They are very unique in their appearance, their aesthetics.”
Granville Rental, which offers rental items for parties, weddings and other gatherings, also “rents out all sorts of equipment from wood splitters to excavators,” Jennings said.
When the business relocates in a couple of months, all 25 or so of Jennings employees will make the move, the owner said.
“We’re excited about it,” Jennings said.