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EDWARDSBURG — An Edwardsburg manufacturer is digging even deeper roots into the community with an upcoming expansion.

Duo Form, one of Michigan’s largest and most trusted thermoformers, broke ground Wednesday on a new 41,700-square-foot addition that will expand their warehouse facilities.

“We are very excited to be breaking ground on our new expansion, especially after the severe challenges brought on by the pandemic in the last year,” said president Shelly Ditmer. “When we decided to shift our production in order to make PPE equipment for local heroes and essential workers nearly a year ago, a new business model was born. This new model gave our company new life in unprecedented times, propelling us from a 90 percent reduction in employees to a 33.3 percent increase above our pre-COVID numbers. This new addition will allow us to continue to increase our capacity across all existing product lines, expanding our product offerings and business partnerships, which will in turn create many new job opportunities in our community.”

Nuway Construction, a design-build general contractor located in Goshen, was chosen for the project.

“As we started developing a solution to Duo Form’s space issue, we soon realized we had to get creative in the building design,” said Andy Nesbitt, president of Nuway Construction. “Their new structure needed to be much taller than the existing, so we came up with an innovative solution that allowed us to construct a building with a 30 foot, 0 inch eave height while not adding more snow load to the existing building that has an eave at 22 foot, 0 inch. Duo Form now has ample space they can utilize for production.”

This addition is scheduled to be completed in August.