J.J.Jensen
   Company growth has necessitated the need for two businesses to seek more space in the former A&R Metal Industries building in Ferndale.
   Moving into the location at 5345-A and 5345-B Labounty Dr., vacant since A&R, a Canadian company, closed operations at the site about a year ago, are QM Bearings and Ferguson Enterprises. Both companies, should be in full operation at the building in the next few weeks, and both plan to add employees.
   “It’s going to be busy there. It’s going to be hopping,” said Cory Shaw, vice president/general manager at QM.
   QM, an industrial-bearing manufacturer, has been located in Ferndale at 5506 Nielsen Ave., Suite B8, since 1997. The 17-person operation is gaining about 6,000 square feet of warehouse room with the move, for a total of 15,000 square feet.
   The new location also includes several thousand square feet of office space for QM, which previously had its offices in its warehouse. The Canadian company, which has additional manufacturing and accounting facilities in Canada, will now consider the Ferndale location its head corporate office, Shaw said.
   “The new building will allow us to have a more professional look,” Shaw said.
QM signed an approximately five-year lease with A&R, which still owns the building.
Shaw said the company is constantly adding employees for warehousing and manufacturing.
   Ferguson Enterprises, which has been at 4318 Pacific Highway for about 15 years, a wholesale distributor of plumbing, industrial, heating and waterworks hard goods, will also move a portion of its business to Ferndale. Ferguson needed the new space because it’s splitting operations.
   Ferguson’s new 20,000-square-foot location at 5345-B Labounty will carry mostly HVAC products and be renamed Air Cold, said Casey Lyons, a Ferguson manager.
Express Construction of Mercer Island is currently performing tenant improvements at the site, and Air Cold should be in sometime in October.
   Ferguson’s current location, which has about 20,000 square feet of warehouse space and a 40,000-square-foot work yard, will continue to carry plumbing and waterworks products.
   With the opening of the new location, Lyons said, Air Cold will likely be adding several new employees, such as managers, outside and inside sales representatives and truck drivers. Most of Ferguson’s 20 employees will remain in its Pacific Highway location.
   “It’s nice to be growing,” Lyons said. “We’ve got a great residential boom going on here. It’s a good time to be in this business.”
   A&R officials in Richmond, British Columbia, could not be reached for comment.