New Hydro Flask HQ on schedule

Owner: Taylor Development LLC

General contractor: SunWest Builders, Redmond

Details: Hydro Flask is on track to open its new company headquarters on NW York Drive in late August or early September, CEO Scott Allan said Friday.

The maker of stainless-steel, vacuum-insulated bottles and containers announced in May 2015 plans for a new, 12,000-square-foot, one-story company home at NW York and NW Lolo drives in NorthWest Crossing. The new offices are twice the size of the existing offices nearby. Allan said the 1.5-acre site has room for another 10,000 square feet when time comes to expand.

“We experienced what can happen when we said we’ll never need more room than this,” he said, and then two years later the company wound up running tight on space.

The new building features a large, central open office area, said Jim Skelly, project superintendent for the general contractor, SunWest Builders, of Redmond. It measures more than 11,000 square feet and is one of the largest he said he’s ever worked on.

“It’s huge,” Skelly said Friday.

The design also features plenty of windows and roll-up doors with views of the Cascades.

A cold snap and snowfall that prevented crews from laying concrete slabs delayed progress from December to February, Skelly said. Crews covered the site to prevent the ground from freezing, he said.

“It was a lot of work,” Skelly said, “but it saved us a lot of construction time.”

Work began in October after Taylor Northwest LLC prepared the site. Steele Associates Architects, of Bend, designed the building. Taylor Development LLC, an arm of Taylor Northwest LLC, a Bend-based construction and development firm, owns the property and leases it long term to Hydro Flask.

The city of Bend in September issued SunWest Builders a permit in September for $1.6 million worth of construction.

Since the company announced its building plans a year ago, Hydro Flask was acquired in March by Helen of Troy Ltd., a maker of housewares, health care devices, beauty aids and other products. Helen of Troy, based in Texas and Bermuda, paid $210 million for Hydro Flask, according to the Helen of Troy annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hydro Flask earned $54 million in revenue in 2015, according to the report.

Helen of Troy markets products in 84 countries, but 80 percent of its fiscal year 2016 sales were in the U.S.

— Joseph Ditzler