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After completing a 100,000-square-foot addition to its Portage, Ind., facility earlier this year, Ratner Steel Supply Co. is continuing to expand; this time in Arkansas. The Roseville, Minn.-based company recently purchased a 150,000-square-foot building in Osceola, Ark., which it’s already using for storage.

“We’ve hired four employees, we are already storing coils, we’re already having people contact us about doing some business together, so we’re off and running,” Ratner Vice President Steve Gottlieb says. “We think that this building is very conducive for both coil storage and maybe, one day, adding some equipment.”

The facility, which is Ratner’s third, is currently being used only for storage, but future plans could include bringing processing equipment into the Osceola site, such as a cut-to-length line. However, that decision is still far down the road, according to Gottlieb, who notes that Ratner would need to do additional market analysis to determine if adding such equipment would make strategic sense for the company.

“Financially, we have the wherewithal to do it whenever we want,” Gottlieb adds. “We think we have the mill contacts and ability to buy to start doing that whenever we want. Now, it’s really just canvassing the area and looking at what the potential is in sales.”

Ratner’s new site is a short drive from Big River Steel and Nucor Steel’s Arkansas division and located on the port of Osceola, which connects to the Mississippi River. “Whether it’s import or export, that port offers you a lot of ability to move steel throughout the United States,” Gottlieb says.

Between its Minnesota and Indiana locations, Ratner currently distributes 30,000 tons of flat-roll steel a month throughout the Midwest, parts of the southern U.S. and Canada.