Moberly Business Support Campus Nears Completion

December 25, 2015

Written By Adam Buckallew

A much-needed upgrade for many outdated MFA Oil facilities is scheduled to open soon. Construction of the MFA Oil Business Support Campus, located in Moberly, Mo. is nearing completion of its first phase. The 33-acre commercial site will house new offices, the maintenance department, parts and packaged goods warehouses, a training center and the product development and quality control department. The second phase, which includes a 32,000-square-foot truck maintenance department and bulk lubricant storage, is currently under construction and is expected to open in late 2015. Eventually, a third building in the plans will include a sandblasting facility, a truck wash and additional storage.

“The new business support campus provided us with an opportunity to modernize several of our older facilities that we had outgrown,” says Mark Fenner, MFA Oil president and CEO. “The site has convenient access to Highway 63, and we were able to get a great deal. The city of Moberly bent over backwards to entice us to come up there and gave us an extremely good price on the land.”

Originally intended as a sweetener manufacturing site, the property included a partially constructed, 28,000-square-foot warehouse and a large canopy structure when MFA Oil acquired it near the end of 2013. Plans and preparations for the site were made in 2014, and construction began in November of that year.

“We were able to use most of the existing framing and only needed to make minimal changes on the inside of the warehouse structure, so that provided a great deal of savings and efficiency to the construction process,” says Ed Harper, MFA Oil director of maintenance and construction. “We were also fortunate that the previous owners had begun construction on a quality control lab. We had already planned on relocating our lab from Columbia, so that was very convenient.”

Harper says an effort was made to try to use the canopy structure, but it eventually became obvious it didn’t fit the company’s plans.

“Early on in the process we thought we could incorporate the existing steel and design the building around what was already there,” Harper says. “However, we discovered it would be more cost effective to start over with a pre-engineered building.”

MFA Oil is initially relocating about 30 positions to the new campus, including employees from the truck maintenance department; laboratory and maintenance warehouse in Columbia; and employees from its distribution center in California, Mo. More staff will be added to the Moberly campus as the company continues to grow.

“Combining operations from multiple locations into the Moberly campus will improve our efficiency, while also providing us with a state-of-the-art truck shop and lab and a dramatic improvement in our warehousing facilities,” says Fenner. “We’re also excited about the training center, which will be able to seat up to 125 people, and the possibilities it creates.”