Johnson Controls building sold to St. Croix Trading Co.

• St. Croix Trading Co. partners

The partners in the St. Croix Trading Co. are, from left, Gerald Tank, his sons Scott and Dave, and Andy Yarrington. They are looking forward owning their own 63,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution facility. Photo by Randy Hanson
• The former Johnson Controls plant at 2101 O’Neil Road

The former Johnson Controls plant at 2101 O’Neil Road was the first building to open in St. Croix Business Park in 1997. It supplied seats for Ford Ranger pickup trucks until the Ford Motor Co. plant in St. Paul closed in December 2011.

Talk about it

A Hudson company has purchased the former Johnson Controls building in St. Croix Business Park and will be moving its operations there this summer.

St. Croix Trading Co. designs, manufactures and imports area rugs from India.

The partners in the business are Dave Tank, his brother Scott Tank and their father Gerald Tank, along with Andy Yarrington.

The company’s offices currently are in the old St. Croix County Courthouse at 904 Third St. It also leases warehouse space in a building on Harvey Street in St. Croix Business Park.

“We are going to expand our business greatly,” said Dave Tank. “We’re going from our current rented 20,000 square feet to 63,000 square feet.”

St. Croix Trading Co. is known as a drop-shipping specialist. It holds the rugs in its warehouse for retailers and ships them directly to the customers when the orders come in.

“We sell to pretty much every major vendor in the United States,” Tank said, naming Kohl’s, Macy’s, Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s and Sam’s Club as some of the company’s customers.

Founded in 1994, St. Croix Trading Co. has a partner in India and contracts with cottage industries to make the rugs.

“Our relationship with India has been such a solid one that we’ve weathered the downturn in the economy and our products have done well in the last couple of years,” Tank said.

He said St. Croix Trading Co. drill wells and builds schools to support the Indian communities where it is located.

“It’s worked out well and we’re excited to go to the next level,” he said.

Tank said that with the move to the new building at 2101 O’Neil Road, St. Croix Trading Co. will expand its rug lines and add home décor items such as vases. The company is looking to begin importing products from Thailand and other countries.

It also plans to open the O’Neil Road facility for retail sales of discontinued and overstocked products one evening a week.

Tank said the company will be adding workers when the move is completed, probably sometime in July.

“We’ve got a lot of rugs to move,” he said, indicating that there are 16,000 of them in the rented warehouse.

According to St. Croix County property records, Direct Logistics LLC paid $1,325,000 for the Johnson Controls building. State records list Dave Tank as the limited liability corporation’s agent.

The facility was the first one built in St. Croix Business Park in 1997. It closed in December 2011, a result of the closing of the Ford Motor Co. plant in St. Paul.

Johnson Controls provided seats for the Ford Ranger pickup trucks built in St. Paul.

Tags: business, retail, hudson