While some 800 Interior Heath staff are looking forward to moving into their new office location downtown, making that happen has become a massive undertaking for the Kelowna commercial movers firm Bekins Moving & Storage.
The IH employees are expected to begin moving into the new building at Doyle Avenue and Ellis Street beginning in October.
To manage a move of this scale, Bekins began preparations in January after successfully bidding on the contract for the job, to handle the moving and storage aspects of the IH administrative relocation.
“It’s quite a substantial move so we’ve scheduled roughly six to eight weeks to pull it off,” said Nathan Miller, owner of Bekins. “The second they’re ready to go, we start putting office furniture in there.”
Miller noted one of the main goals for any commercial move is to minimize downtime and disruption.
When asked what the biggest obstacle was, the affable Miller laughs: “Across the board, it’s just having everyone keep up with me. You have to have the right staff in place.”
Bekins has rapidly expanded operations since Miller took over in January 2015. In that time, he increased his warehouse capacity from 8,000 square feet to nearly 20,000 square feet. By Christmas, he expects that number to be closer to 24,000.
Fortunately, there’s plenty of room to grow in their current location at the old Hiram Walker plant—a 45,000 square-foot facility—in the Winfield industrial park.(www.bekinskelownamovers.com)
Miller has also increased his arsenal of moving equipment by about two-thirds since he started with Bekins, growing from 30 pieces to more than 50. This includes everything from moving trucks to forklifts to specialized dollies.
Miller currently operates with a staff of 40, and he has recently hired for several key positions, including a new dispatcher and office admin worker.
“Peak season is now over, but we haven’t slowed down, we just changed gears,” said Miller. “I don’t have enough staff to do all of the winter work I have lined up. That’s pretty unheard of in our industry.”