WILBUR — Brothers Gary and Scott Crowe sat in Gary’s office last week discussing FCC Commercial Furniture’s $1.5 million expansion.


“We’ll never expand again,” said Gary, company president.

“How many times have we said that?” asked Scott, who leads FCC’s research and development.

The company’s latest expansion began in August with groundwork on a 38,000-square-foot warehouse and factory extension that’s expected to be finished by March 2014.

The new space has been planned for a year. It isn’t specifically for growth, but instead to give space to the company’s already growing operation.

FCC has experienced a sales increase of 30 percent during the last year. The company employs 164 and has added around 50 employees over the last few years.
“It’s pretty crowded right now,” said Gary Crowe.

FCC’s main market, quick service restaurants — or fast food — has changed in recent years in regards to style and customization of furniture and appearance.

Gary Crowe said that market has also grown because of companies offering incentives to encourage remodeling.

Some of FCC’s bigger-name clients include McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and KFC. FCC makes tables and benches in those restaurants, and also handles entire redesigns from the ground up.

The company sells locally, as well as across the country.

FCC’s staff has expanded to meet demand, but nothing is mass produced. A batch of chairs may be made 100 at a time, with factory workers cutting and welding much of them by hand. The design-side of the operation has also grown to meet the demand for more customized furniture and features.

“We have a pretty good reputation for our product and our production capabilities, but design is a lot of it,” Gary Crowe said.

FCC started nearly 40 years ago by Bob Crowe, father to Gary and Scott, as well as another son, Mick, who is also in the family business.

It began in Southern California as Freight Container Corp. It shifted from producing shipping containers to restaurant furniture by the early 1970s.

FCC relocated to Douglas County in 1993 after experiencing difficulty with expanding its operation.

Reflecting on that decision, Gary Crowe said working with Douglas County officials on FCC’s most recent expansion showed why the family made a good decision to relocate 13 years ago.

MICHELLE ALAIMO / N-R staff photo
Crowe said county planners worked with FCC to make sure the project happened.

With the company’s lone plant set to increase in production and warehousing space by 40 percent, there are no plans for another facility or another location somewhere else.

“This is home. This is it,” Crowe said. “I wouldn’t want more than one factory.”

Crowe said he’s seen other similar companies grow to multiple plants and then fall flat. Scott Crowe said by expanding their current facility, FCC will be in a better position to market nationally.

“It allows us to manufacture much more cost efficiently and space efficiently,” he said.
That said, if the company does continue to grow, the additional space will allow that to happen without the building being a bottleneck.

It will be the third major expansion of FCC since it arrived in Douglas County. A 6,000-square-foot addition to the factory was done in 1993.

In 1997, an additional 27,000 square feet was erected.

Even though the brothers joked that the latest 38,000-square-foot expansion will be the last, Scott Crowe said their business is “constantly” changing.

The plan is to keep changing with it. The Crowes said they appreciate the diversity of their business.

A restaurant in the Midwest will be different than in the country’s South, which will also be different than a restaurant in Roseburg, Oregon.

That keeps the company creative. Scott Crowe said he wouldn’t want to just make thousands of the exact same products over and over again.

“It becomes a commodity if you do that,” Scott said.

• You can reach reporter Paul Craig at 957-4211 or by e-mail at pcraig@newsreview.info.