The 16-by-9-foot high-definition LED screen that greets guests with drone views of downtown Detroit in the lobby of Signarama Troy/Metro Detroit’s new facility is indicative of what lies beyond it — a growing company driven by technology.
Last December, Signarama President and CEO Bob Chapa had just about given up on finding the right kind of real estate along I-75 in Troy to expand the company when PPG Automotive put its regional office building on the market.
Four months and $4 million later, Signarama’s nearly 50 employees were occupying the 85,000- square-foot facility, which has plenty of room for the numerous high-tech machines it uses to create signs of all shapes and sizes for clients including Jet’s Pizza, Beaumont Health, PayPal, and many others.
The facility includes a 4,500-square-foot design center and a 3,500-square-foot print room with a quarter-of-a-million-dollar flatbed printer capable of producing a 4-by-8-foot sheet in about 30 seconds. Other production areas house laser engravers, CNC machines, automated channel letter-bending machines, a paint booth, and a large sign assembly operation.
“The goal would be when a new business is opening in Michigan, we offer a space for them to come in and learn about building signs and window graphics, interior wall murals, and ADA-compliant Braille signs,” Chapa says.
The second floor features warehouse space and offices that Chapa hopes to lease to an ad agency or another creative company.
Signarama’s new digs are a far cry from where the company started almost a quarter century ago. The franchise’s first outpost was an 853-square-foot space in Madison Heights where Chapa says $10,000 in revenue was a good month.
Chapa and his crew soon outgrew that location and moved to a 20,000-square-foot site at Rochester Road and I-75 in Troy. They were there for 12 years.
“The Troy community had a big impact on our growth, and we were out of room within five years,” Chapa says. “We were there much longer than we wanted to be, but I couldn’t find any real estate in the area that was along I-75 that could support us in the future.”
The local Signarama is now the West Palm Beach, Fla.-based franchise’s largest of 900 locations in 60 countries. It brings in between $8 million and $10 million annually. The new facility also is home to Chapa’s 4-year-old National Branding enterprise, which assists companies across the country with rebranding activities.
“We have so much work in the pipeline. If anything, our struggles are adding new people to the team,” Chapa says. “We’re looking to add another 20 to 25 (employees) by the end of the year.”
