Glass dealer expands as demand grows

FRANKLIN — The owner of a glass and mirror company wants to break ground by early summer on a new $1.2 million facility near the Liberty Pike/Eddy Lane intersection.

Genesis Glass and Mirror owner Ken Adler hopes to move forward on construction later this year of a new 10,000-12,000-square-foot facility that would replace his current office space on Southeast Parkway.

Increasing demand for glass for residential and commercial construction is pushing Adler to build the new, bigger facility. He owns the vacant lot next door to the Veterans of Foreign Wars building on Eddy Lane.

“We’re growing so fast we’re absolutely out of space,” Adler said. “We’ve got more business than we can handle.”

The new construction is just the latest development for the Liberty Pike/Eddy Lane area in recent months. On Liberty Pike, Bristol Development Group built the 218-unit Bell Historic Franklin apartments. On Eddy Lane, construction is still ongoing for the Dallas-based Compass Datacenters, which is completing the first 21,000 square feet of construction on a new data warehouse.

Adler likes the Liberty Pike area because of easier access for future customers onto nearby Franklin Road and access to Interstate 65, which isn’t too far away.

In late March, aldermen unanimously declared about 4,300 square feet of empty land near the intersection as surplus property. Adler paid the city an appraised price of about $2,500 for the property to use for the future entrance of the company’s offices.

The facility and the property won’t be what you might typically see in an industrial area, Adler said.

“This is going to be a glass and stone, eye-catcher type of a piece,” he said.

Construction could begin in May or June on the project.