Hartington Equipment Expansion

Oct 18, 2023

It’s been 65 years since Ron and Marg Prichard opened Hartington Equipment, a small company serving the farming and construction communities, in what was then Portland Township. The company was eventually taken over by their son Rod, and in 1975 Rod decided that, in addition to the Case products that he was selling, he would take on a new player in the Canadian market, Kubota.

The Canadian Kubota headquarters at the time was one unit in a business strip. Kubota has grown since then, and so has Hartington Equipment.

In early September, an 11-month construction project was completed when the company took possession of a new 25,000 square foot showroom and shop, and 12,000 square feet of storage sheds, a stones-throw north of their previous location on Road 38, just south of Hartington.

It was a $7.5 million construction project financed by Hartington Equipment and Kubota and CIBC. It was easily the largest commercial construction project in Frontenac County in recent years, perhaps the largest commercial project in the history of the county. The only larger project over the last 15 years was Granite Ridge Education Centre, which cost over $15 million in 2013, and that was financed by the Government of Ontario. A project of this magnitude in Frontenac County, done without government or support, is unprecedented.

“I am pleased with the way it has turned out,” said company head Dustin Prichard. “We now have the shop that we need to be able to service all of the equipment that we sell, a showroom with parts and accessories and other lines of products, the office space we need, and most of the storage we need,” he said.

But not all of the storage, yet. The large storage shed behind the building is already full, and one or two new ones will be necessary in the coming years. The office and boardroom space, on the second floor above the showroom, includes extra space, providing room to grow.

In 2015, shortly after taking over day to day operations of the company from his father, Dustin had a large shop built at the former site. But this was a much bigger project that required a year of planning, followed by the 11-month construction project.

“This is it for me,” said Prichard of the project. “I’ll leave the next expansion for someone else.” He said that the facility positions Hartington Equipment to grow in the short term and to be able to thrive in a variety of market conditions, over the next 20-25 years.

The past few years have shown how quickly things can change.

“We had a record year in 2019, and then things slowed down a bit with COVID in 2020, but in 2021 and 2022 when new people began moving in, we were selling our smaller tractors like never before. It helped us win the award as Kubota Canada’s top dealer for compact trailers, for 2022. Out of 140 dealers, that’s a pretty good award to win. That has slowed down a bit, but the construction industry is really strong now.”

The key element for future growth, according to Prichard, is to be able to provide quick and efficient service for customers, and the expanded repair shop allows for more mechanics to be working efficiently on small and large pieces of equipment. And having the new shop open has already paid dividends in terms of recruiting mechanics.

The publicity around us building the largest Kubota dealership in Eastern Ontario is attractive to mechanics. They heard what was going on, and we were able to hire.

There are now about 30 employees at Hartington Equipment, including new sales, repair and admin staff coming on.

With the new building and showroom, other product lines are coming on stream as well. There are Makita products available now, and at the north side of the building, a full line of Weberlane trailers.

“We heard from our customers that they needed trailers, so we started with that, and there are so many different types of trailers that people need that we will be looking to expand that by next spring,” said Dustin. “It's one thing that has already come from the move here.”

While it was more than a bit of a scramble to move into the new space because the former Hartington Equipment site was sold to SMS Fabricating, with a September closing.

“We had hoped that the new building would be ready on August 1st,so we would have a month to move, but we only ended up with a few days.”

Six weeks later, everything seems to have settled in, and there is not much empty space in the gleaming new building, or on the 4 acre site. Fortunately, there is room to grow on the site, and that will be a project for another year.

For now, the goal is to keep serving the main market of Frontenac and Lennox and Addington, as well as customers from across Eastern Ontario who seek out Hartington Equipment, because of selection and service.

There will be a grand opening for the new Hartington Equipment sometime next spring.