VALLEY VIEW, OH -- Growth in business often means building up or moving out, as existing facilities strain under expanding inventory and customer pressures. As growing pains go, however, it’s really not a bad problem to have, although the decision to uproot and move can be a tough one, especially for a company like Pat Young Service Co., which had been in the same spot for decades. But the fact remained that the Federated member had long outgrown its main distribution center in Avon, OH, a suburb on the west side of Cleveland.

Since the company was unable to build up, it looked to move out. “We’d outgrown our Avon location years ago,” said Pat Young President Duke Young. “If we wanted to grow, then we’d have to find a new facility.”

The company was fortunate to find an existing facility -- a former cardboard packaging plant -- in Valley View, also a Cleveland suburb. After a sometimes complicated refurbishing process, the distribution center officially opened in mid-March. The former distribution center, which was 60,000-square-feet of warehousing space, is now dwarfed by its Valley View replacement --140,000-square-feet, complete with all the efficiencies of a modern warehouse. And although this new facility’s office space is slightly smaller than the company had previously, all offices are now able to be housed together in the same building. The previous arrangement had offices spread out among three different buildings. The family-owned and operated company services aftermarket customers in Northern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and Southern Michigan. Along with the new main distribution center in Valley View, the company operates 42 stores, satellites and other distribution centers in the Great Lakes region.