New Vision settles into new offices

• New Vision

julie buntjer/daily globe Frank McDowell, general manager of New Vision Cooperative, stands in front of the cooperative’s new facility along Minnesota 60 in rural Brewster. Employees moved their work stations to the new facility on Sept. 12.

Talk about it

BREWSTER — Just as farmers gear up to harvest their corn and soybean crops for the season, the employees of New Vision Cooperative are settling into their new surroundings in a state-of-the-art office complex southwest of Brewster.

Although their move was more than a month behind schedule, general manager Frank McDowell said they are happy to be in their new building.

The facility, which houses the main offices for New Vision Cooperative, had been a dream of McDowell’s for the past five years. After exhausting many options to keep their offices in Worthington, he said the decision to locate out of town ultimately was made by the cooperative’s board of directors.

“The board said, we own this land — this is where we should put the structure,” said McDowell of the 100 acres purchased by New Vision in 2006 to construct a fertilizer plant near Brewster.

“If it were up to me, I would have loved to remodel the library,” McDowell said, referring to conversations he had more than a year ago with Nobles County commissioners. At that time, commissioners were looking at constructing a new library and perhaps leaving the existing building available for development.

New Vision’s timeline, however, just didn’t fit in with the county’s plans.

Owning the land near Brewster was just one advantage to moving the main offices there. McDowell said his board also liked the Minnesota 60 exposure.

Initially, the plan was to move into the new offices on Aug. 1. However, Minnesota’s government shutdown in July forced delays.

“We had to have a permit to go under Minnesota 60 with our Internet,” said McDowell, adding that the permit couldn’t be obtained because the MnDOT office was closed. New Vision also had to wait for the state electrical inspector to grant a certificate of occupancy, which took longer than anticipated.

“The phone, data and electrical inspector all came within one week,” McDowell said.

Employees moved their work stations to rural Brewster earlier this month, and Sept. 12 was their first day of business in the new facility.

More than 20 employees in the grain, agronomy and feed divisions are housed in the new office building, and McDowell is pleased with the new headquarters.

“I am the happiest guy in Nobles County,” he said with a grin. “It’s beautiful here.”

Designed by Lon Negen of Negen Architects in Cold Spring and built by Marcus Construction of Willmar, McDowell said the office building blends in well with its surroundings. The goal was to create a building with a rural look, accomplished with timber and stone facing on the exterior and natural tones throughout the interior. The board room table, constructed from granite purchased at Cold Spring, even carries the image of agriculture with its likeness of layered soils.

While the goal was to build a structure to blend in with the rural setting, it was also important to incorporate energy efficient technology. A cupola along the top of the structure is lined with windows to generate natural light inside the facility, and geo-thermal heating and cooling was also included in the plan.

As for the view from beyond the office windows, employees on Monday morning looked out to see rows of corn and soybeans under an overcast sky. Eventually, said McDowell, land closest to the building will be brimming with prairie grasses and flowers.

Meanwhile, inside the building, things are moving along smoothly, although a few technology glitches are still being worked out and the reception area has yet to be filled with furniture.

The 10,000-square-foot facility is more than double the size of the cooperative’s former Worthington offices. The added space will provide room for growth, and it also offers amenities that didn’t exist before — like a conference room with seating for up to 30 people and a variety of small meeting rooms.

The conference room will house producer meetings and employee trainings, and has already been utilized a half a dozen times since the relocation, McDowell said.

An employee break room is adjacent to the conference room, with a window constructed between the two for serving food. McDowell also pointed to a cement patio accessible through the break room for employees to utilize when the weather is nice.

Throughout the facility, McDowell said space was added in for future growth.

“It’s inevitable that the business will grow,” he said. “We expect new employees over the next five years.”

As for the old office space in Worthington, McDowell said the Worthington feed mill manager and the New Vision feed quality control person are still housed in the building.

“It will probably fill up with something,” McDowell said. “It’s still being used by New Vision, and at this stage it will probably stay that way.”

Calls to the Worthington facility do transfer to the new main office near Brewster. A direct number to the new facility is (507) 842-2001.

Tags: news, new, vision, settles, new, offices