German Company Chooses Savage for New US Headquarters

Beckhoff Automation is skipping town. The German maker of automation software and other industrial computer technology plans to move its U.S. headquarters from Burnsville to its more diminutive neighbor, Savage.

Beckhoff is building a new 44,000-square-foot office-warehouse at 13130 Dakota Ave. in Savage, to open in March 2013. Mark Lewis, manager of technical services at Beckhoff, recently told the Star Tribune that the new site will be double the size of its current facility in Burnsville—with room to grow.

The building will also be custom built to Beckhoff's specifications, unlike the space it leases as of now.

"It became clear that there were advantages to building something for our own use, a larger facility that would be customized for us," Lewis said.

Steven Faber, chief business development officer with project contractor Anderson-KM Builders, told Finance & Commerce that the new HQ has been “a long time coming:” The firm had been working on it for a number of years, but hit a snag when the economy tanked in 2008.

“With things coming back they decided to move forward,” Faber said.

The project is expected to generate 40 to 45 jobs in Savage. F & C quotes Bryan Tucker, the city of Savage’s planning director, as saying that the construction cost would total about $7.2 million.