Clickstop growth driving expansion

With average annual revenue growth of 41 percent, Clickstop of Urbana needs more space for offices and warehousing.

The e-retailer and manufacturer on Wednesday said it will break ground in September for a $6 million, 53,080-square-foot addition to its 68,000-square-foot office and warehouse at 202 Blue Creek Dr. Tim Guenther, Clickstop founder and CEO, said completion is planned for August 2016.

'When we moved here in 2011, we bought a 9-acre lot,” Guenther said. 'With this building expansion and additional parking, we will use up about 90 percent of the land.”

Guenther said about 33,000 square feet of the new building will be office and common area space. The remaining 20,000 square feet will be used for manufacturing.

'We expect to add 100 employees by the end of 2018,” Guenther said. 'They will be added in increments as we continue to grow.”

Guenther said the city of Urbana has been very supportive of Clickstop. He attributed the the company's strong revenue growth to hard work on the part of its employees.

'Urbana is really a great place to grow a business,” Guenther said. 'We have a lot of people coming to work each day from Cedar Rapids, Cedar Falls and Waterloo.”

Debi Durham, director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority, toured the company after Guenther's news conference. Durham said Iowa's rural communities need to plan for future,

'Clickstop is here because Urbana had an industrial park that was ready for development,” Durham said. 'The community also had things like fiber and utility access.

'We also need to build communities where these young folks want to live and work.”

Durham said the Iowa's workforce housing program that provides tax incentives to developers can help rural communities attract employers.