New trucking facilities: South Anchorage sees more expansion, investment.

• Author: White, Rindi
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Transportation

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When size constraints of a business location block expansion and better service, perhaps it's time to make an investment in the future.

This spring, TrailerCraft/Freightliner of Alaska completed their new, thirty-five-thousand-square-foot facility located off C Street south of Dimond at 222 West 92nd Avenue in Anchorage, about three miles away from their former location at the intersection of New Seward Highway and Dowling Road. The new facility, including all new equipment and furnishings, came in at a cost of just under $10 million.

The process took about four years of work, Owner Lee McKenzie says, but it's already proving well worth the time and monetary investment. Much of that initial work was done in the planning phase. Construction of the facility took less than a year. McKenzie says he and his wife, Paulette McKenzie, a dealer principal with the company, selected MCN Construction, Inc. as their contractor and were very happy with the result.

TrailerCraft/Freightliner of Alaska opened for business in the new facility on March 22. Since opening the doors, Lee McKenzie says the service work has doubled in volume, with all fourteen bays being used on both shifts.

"The key to this facility is it is built for the diversification of our business. One of our main goals and focus for the new facility was to pick up any efficiency available to better serve our customers," McKenzie says.

Growing Pains

TrailerCraft/Freightliner of Alaska is a franchise commercial truck dealership with a lot of supporting businesses. They're a dealer for Freightliner trucks, Western Star trucks, Sprinter vans, and Blue Bird buses. In addition, they are the Western and SnowEx snow plow distributors for the state. They also service what they sell and are able to service other brands.

McKenzie says the company started as TrailerCraft, an after-market parts company, in 1969. The company has sold commercial trucks for nearly thirty years and has held the Blue Bird bus franchise since 1979.

"The buses are utilized on the North Slope to transport workers to and from the oil fields and for transporting visitors through Denali National Park," McKenzie says.

Diversification is TrailerCraft's underlying motto, and it's helped the company succeed even in lean times.

"We're not reliant on the oil field. When that slows down, our tourism market is booming," McKenzie says.

Sprinter vans and Blue Bird buses are heavily used by the visitor industry, he...