CAMBRIDGE, Ont. — Kenworth Truck Centres Cambridge moved into its state-of-the-art facility last month and officially held its grand opening today.

The new facility at 40,000 sq-ft is quadruple the size of its old location in Kitchener and has staff smiling from ear to ear. 

“I can’t even talk about the old facility because this new place is significantly better,” said Vince Tarola, dealer principal. “We just think it’s a great new facility and a place where we can really grow.”

The shiny new facility sits on seven paved acres, has an indoor show room, a part display, 10,000 sq-ft of parts storage, and eight drive through bays.

The decision to build a new facility was looming for while, Tarola said, as the staff at Kenworth simply outgrew their old Kitchener location.

“We just wanted to do a better job for our customers,” Tarola said about the decision to build a new space. “We want to grow our share with existing customers and with new customers. We were constrained with how many trucks we could service (at the old location) and it was time for us to do a better job of servicing our customers. We needed more space for service bays and more space for parts. And really, it was a way of saying thank you for our customers who support us.”

Tarola said that he sat down with an engineering team and an architectural team to design the building so that it flowed. The team officially broke ground last October.

“We wanted it to be easy for our customers to navigate,” he explained. “And we wanted it to flow from parts to service, so you could walk in and there could be a central core with spokes for different departments.”

The building also has big bright windows around the building to let natural light in and features large offices for its staff members.

“And the staff absolutely love it here,” Tarola said adding that in total the new building is home to 35 staff members.

The grand opening itself, which ran from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. consisted of a ribbon cutting ceremony, as well as a lunch for attendees, and facility tours to anyone who asked. It saw around 250-300 people attend all day.

“It was a really fun day,” Tarola said.

The new facility is located at 44 Barnes Road in Cambridge. To learn more, visit www.kwtoronto.com.