Nestled at the east edge of Kansas City’s Historic Northeast Neighborhoods is an industrial district. A special steel mill known as Armco Steel once anchored this area. The site has history as far back as 1888. Then the business was known as the Kansas City Bolt and Nut Company, “the department store of the steel industry”.
The plant is sitting in the shadow of one of the first Ford assembly plants outside of Detroit. Previously, the building was near ruin. It took a local family-owned business that started in 1996, Custom Truck & Equipment (CTE), nearly 20 years of hard work and vision to realize the dream of revitalizing this historical site – a site that was once an employer of choice and an economic anchor for the surrounding community.
Attracting investment from leading investment firm Blackstone in 2015, CTE re-branded in 2018 as Custom Truck One Source, billed as “the first true single-source provider of specialized truck and heavy equipment solutions”. The company may be hearkening back to its 1888 predecessor; this time reborn as “the department store of the truck and heavy equipment industry”.
Custom Truck One Source now has a coast-to-coast footprint and is made up of a conglomeration of many vocational truck businesses that believe in building quality custom products for their customers. The most recent investment comes in the form of a 119,035 square foot production facility. It is in Kansas City, proudly sitting just south of Independence Avenue. Before and after photos are below. Stay tuned for more to come on the new addition to the Kansas City Headquarters.
