“Over the last three years, we identified that we wanted to expand, and we wanted to expand into the Cincinnati market, and then from identifying that to strategically going after residential, commercial and municipality accounts, that led us into the point now where we have enough business down there to constitute the move that makes sense,” said Seth Pflum, Grunder Landscaping’s president and COO.
Pflum said Grunder Landscaping got its start in 1984 when founder Marty Grunder purchased a lawnmower for $25 at a garage sale to make enough money to pay for college.
Pflum said he has worked for the firm since 2013 and been its president and COO for the past year and a half.
Renovations to the Loveland facility have been underway since mid-September and are projected to be completed in mid- to late November, said Pflum.
“It’s a very clean facility, but we’re also very particular in how our facilities look and how they are kept, because we believe that’s a sign of respect demonstrated to our team, so we wanted just to modernize it,” he said. “It hasn’t really had any ... renovations or improvement since when it was built in the late 90s to early 2000s and then there’s just some groundwork for truck parking, etcetera, that needs to be done.”
He declined to disclose the renovation’s overall cost.
WHK LLC, a real estate company that Pflum said he and Grunder own, purchased the property in September for $1.3 million, according to Hamilton County Auditor’s Office records.
Grunder Landscaping Co. will lease the building and land from WHK LLC, Pflum said.
The new location’s opening initially will be staffed by as many as 18 new jobs, Pflum said. “Our goal is to be a team of 80 in five years down there,” he said.
It has plans to expand elsewhere in the region within the next five years, he said.
Grunder Landscaping Co.’s 8,000-square-foot headquarters sits on 18 acres at 1900 Old Byers Road in Miamisburg and employs 110 staffers during peak season, “but we don’t really slow down” during winter months, Pflum said.
That’s because it provides snow and ice mitigation services by servicing approximately 15 million to 20 million square feet of pavement of commercial properties. Additionally, each winter finds the company continuing to build outdoor living spaces with pavers, kitchens, fireplaces, fire pits and other general construction projects.
The company’s revenues have grown 40% this year compared to a year ago and about 350% since the end of 2020, he said.
Having a physical address closer to the communities it serves in Warren and Hamilton counties is important to Grunder Landscaping, Pflum said.
“We believe in service to our community, our clients and our team, and having a physical location shows that we’re serious about being part of the community versus just being an outside member of the community servicing it,” he said. “We believe in having roots in the locations that we service.”
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