A German roofing firm which started out in a converted Ipswich house 20 years ago is celebrating its transformed UK headquarters.
Family-owned roofing manufacturer Bauder has invested £7m in its Landseer Road site, 30 years after opening its first UK headquarters in Broughton Road.
It follows an £11m investment in a 44,000sq ft warehousing and distribution facility at Gateway 14 in Stowmarket.
SIGN UP HERE FOR YOUR TWICE-WEEKLY BUSINESS NEWSLETTER
The 41,000sq ft Landseer Road building has been transformed, with a mezzanine floor added to its former warehouse space.
The building will house a training school for Bauder’s 300 approved roofing subcontractors and offices for its 284-strong UK workforce, including 153 staff across its two Suffolk sites.
Bauder took over the building from Baylham-based Gipping Construction at an official handover today (Tuesday, September 15), after a 10-month project that added a staff restaurant, solar panels and other facilities.
The building was stripped back to its shell, then re-clad and re-roofed, with new windows and insulation added.
The ground floor now measures 33,000 sq ft, with a further 8,290 sq ft above.
Bauder, based in Stuttgart, Germany, is a fourth-generation family business operating across Europe.
Export director Jan Bauder, a member of the family’s fourth generation, will attend the staff opening ceremony in October.
Joint managing director John Llewellyn said the UK business had grown by an average of 10 per cent a year over the past five years, outgrowing its facilities.
“It's really exciting. It's future-proofing our business. It's probably 20 years ago we were operating from one house in Broughton Road in Ipswich,” he said.
Joint managing director Yvonne Higgins said the firm’s strong family ethos and the investment underlined its commitment to Ipswich.
“For us what's important is we had a choice when we were looking to expand to move away from Ipswich but because this was our head office and where our people are, we wanted to make sure we continued to invest in our premises and our people,” she said.
"It's been great for us to watch the business grow and develop and to get everybody back together it's so important."
Bauder makes and supplies modern waterproofing systems, thermal insulation, green and blue roofs, and photovoltaic (PV) systems.
Gipping, which employs 36 people, won the contract through competitive tender. Construction director Julian Davies said the project was complex because it had to fit within the existing footprint.
“It went very well for us,” he said, praising the “lovely collaborative approach” to the work.
Andrew Marchant, a senior associate building surveyor at Colchester-based Ingleton Wood, and his team supported the project with consultancy, civil engineering and design work.
He was also involved when Bauder moved to the Landseer Road site as a tenant 15 years ago.
“I was the project manager when we did the refurbishment and conversion 15 years ago,” he said, adding that the larger project was much more complicated this time.
“It was really challenging because of the constraints of the existing building but it came out really, really well,” he said.
Gipping has worked on several Ipswich projects, including the award-winning 96-home Ravenswood scheme, Ipswich Borough Council’s Hawke Road development and the redevelopment of Ipswich Museum.
The Gateway 14 facility is Bauder's largest distribution hub in the country and includes solar PV, rainwater harvesting and electric-vehicle charging points.
Share