GONZALES — Papé Material Handling opened its new Gonzales location with a celebration earlier this month, allowing the public to tour the facility, get acquainted with the team and see an electric truck.
An estimated 100 community members showed up to the Aug. 4 grand opening, including Gonzales city staff and council members.
“The demo went well with about 40 customers looking at the new Electric J360HD,” said Papé Central Valley General Manager Randy Hall. “The truck was then delivered to American Cooling for a live demo and filming.”
Papé offers such rental equipment as forklifts and reach trucks for area agricultural and construction companies. Its selection includes traditional combustion engine vehicles as well as newer electric models. The electric trucks range from 3,000 to 36,000 pounds.
“California is pushing electric heavily and offering customers rebates to upgrade their fleets,” Hall said.
Papé’s new location is within the Gonzales Agricultural Industrial Park, at 111 Puente Del Monte Ave., a shift from its previous site that was right off Highway 101 in Salinas.
“We appreciate how accommodating the city of Gonzales has been in assisting us to navigate building plan and permit approvals, so the project could be completed on time,” Hall said. “We look forward to serving the area for many years with superior equipment and unparalleled customer service that maximizes a customer’s uptime so their operations keep moving forward.”
The new Papé facility is built on 3.49 acres and the building is 31,500 square feet enclosed, including a showroom, parts department, warehouse and service department. There is an additional 6,260 square feet under overhangs or canopies.
“We picked Gonzales because it is in the center of the agricultural business trading area, which represents a large portion of our customer base,” Hall said. “Several major ag coolers (who are big customers of ours) are right next door or down the street. Our former Salinas facility was at the very north end of the trading area the store serves. This location is much larger than our previous one, which allows for more inventory and growth for our team.”
The Papé facility was built to meet California Green Building Standards using pre-engineered metal as a benefit over conventional on-site construction. The steel used in the construction is recyclable in the future.
“What makes this a state-of-the art customer experience is its attractive design, ability to house large quantities of rental equipment, multimedia integration, and its over-sized shop with high capacity tooling and equipment,” said Chris Wetle, president of Papé. “Our design team took great care in laying out department work areas to maximize the visual, auditory, and proximity between customers, members and departments.”
On the energy end, the new building is solar ready.
“Papé is pleased to participate in the Gonzales Grows Green Community Sustainability Initiative, known as G3,” Wetle said. “When the micro-grid for the business park breaks ground and then is completed, our facility will be ready to take advantage of the energy generated by the nearby wind turbines.
The Papé Gonzales site has 32 employees and is one of 38 locations in California, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
The building was turned over to the company after construction finished on June 21, at which point Papé began the transition of staff and equipment for the August opening.
“Nothing really changes for our customer base,” Hall said about the move from Salinas to Gonzales. “The new facility will allow us to better serve the area, and all new ag coolers will be built all around the new location.”
