DATE: Friday, October 24, 1997              TAG: 9710240619

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   62 lines

DISTRIBUTION CENTER WILL MEAN 100 NEW JONS TO CHESAPEAKE RADIATOR IMPORTER TO OPEN IN MARCH

When Cooling Systems & Flexibles Inc. of Rialto, Calif., needed a place for its East Coast headquarters, Chesapeake had everything the company was looking for:

A large port. Convenient highways. And a location within a day's drive of two-thirds of the company's customers.

But such business amenities still haven't convinced the employees of the southern California manufacturer to relocate to Virginia.

``Most of our California guys like it where they are,'' said CSF president August ``Gus'' Wiegand. ``We aren't getting many transfer applications.''

Chesapeake needn't be offended by this preference for the Pacific, Wiegand said.

After all, the city will gain 100 jobs from CSF's Chesapeake facility, which will distribute the foreign car and truck radiators the company imports from its overseas factories. CSF's $2 million warehouse in Cavalier Industrial Park will employ 30 people initially. CSF will hire an additional 70 people when it opens a factory at the site within three to four years, Wiegand said.

Wiegand said CSF received no financial incentives to locate in Chesapeake, other than finding a reasonable price for land and construction.

Chesapeake's Economic Development Department and Riddle Associates Inc., however, did help CSF with their site selection search.

``Economic development provided us with advice and assistance we wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford,'' Wiegand said.

CSF broke ground earlier this month and should begin operating by March.

And what the East Coast lacks in palm trees, it makes up for in customers.

Although CSF has operated its headquarters in California for 18 years, most of its domestic business is on the East Coast, Wiegand said. The new Chesapeake distribution center will shorten delivery times for those customers.

``Our East Coast customers are complaining that it takes too long to get products to them,'' Wiegand said. ``A radiator is one of those parts that you don't care much about until it's broken. But when the radiator is broken, you can't go anywhere, so you're in a rush to fix it.''

The company's 90,000-square-foot facility will be three times bigger than its West Coast office - a 30,000 square-foot distribution center employing 34 people, Wiegand said. That California center distributes CSF's products, which are manufactured at factories in Germany, India, Indonesia and Singapore.

CSF sells directly to repair shops, automobile dealers and wholesale distributors, he said.

CSF's expansion into Chesapeake means more than just jobs for the city, said Warren Harris, with Chesapeake's economic development office. The company's purchase of 5.3-acre site in Cavalier Industrial Park also means that the 700-acre park is nearly filled, with only 25 acres left for sale.

The 20-year-old park is Chesapeake's only city-owned industrial park, Harris said. It has been one of the region's fastest growing commerce parks, Harris said.

Growth in ``Cavalier is slowly coming to a sunset,'' Harris said. ``It was considered at one point to be way out of the loop as far as where companies wanted to be located, but now that the highway is opened up it's become a central location.''

Space in existing business parks is so tight that 10 companies already have expressed interest in Cavalier South, a 60-acre extension of Cavalier Industrial Park that's not scheduled to open for another year, Harris said.

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