Fastenal outlet no longer on city's west side

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG

PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - The Fastenal outlet on the city's west side has closed and consolidated operations with another area facility.

According to Josh Anderson, Fastenal's district manager for southeast Iowa, the Fort Madison outlet at 5634 Avenue O was closed about a month ago with the last business day in September.

The outlet, along with the two employees that were on staff there, were joined with operations at the company's West Burlington facility at 1301 Broadway Street.

"I took this market over in September and began to look at the business and realized this didn't make sense. We could do better for our customers by combining Fort Madison with operations in West Burlington," Anderson said.

Fastenal's main business is wholesale distribution of construction and industrial supplies. Anderson said the Fort Madison location did have a small retail outlet as part of the footprint but it wasn't a very big part of the business.

"This was more of the weekend garage guy coming in looking for a specific screw for a piece of furniture he wanted to fix," Anderson said. "It was more of a time suck for us than what it was worth."

He said since the closure, the construction and industrial customers in the Fort Madison area have given positive feedback on the change.

Anderson said the company will maintain its Keokuk facility at 3533 Main Street, as well.

"Our business model is business-to-business with a focus on wholesale products. We go to facilities and maintain inventory levels for them. If they come to our facilities it's like we did something wrong. We feel we're better positioned in southeast Iowa now to service that market and we're excited about that."

Fastenal is based out of Winona, Minn. and is traded publicly on the NASDAQ listing.

Closure, consolidation, construction, Fastenal, fort madison, Industry, Pen City Current, supplies, West Burlington

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