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Trackmobile broke ground on their new offices on Tuesday, 18 months after the tornadoes that hit LaGrange in March 2023 destroyed part of the facility.

Ralph Przybyszewski, President of Trackmobile, said construction on the new offices is expected to start this month, hopefully by mid-month.

“Originally, this facility was dedicated on September 29, 1980. Part of it is still existing. Thankfully, it’s the most important part because it’s where we make our stuff and sell stuff. Not that the office wasn’t important,” Przybyszewski said.

When the March 26 storm came through LaGrange, winds from the tornadoes, along with heavy hail and water, collapsed the roof on the front section of the facility where most of the offices were located.

“It took out most of the building with water damage, so we demolished the [office] building and are going to rebuild the new offices here,” Przybyszewski said, explaining they put temporary office trailers toward the front of the property.

Przybyszewski said miraculously, they only lost five days of production due to the storm.

“This team pulled together and got the facility prepared. We did have to replace a whole roof on the facility here because it had damage from the hail,” Przybyszewski said.

“As we’re learning these last many years, you work around issues, work around problems. I like to say, adapt, overcome and improvise. We’re constantly having to do that. We’re going to have to do that again over the next few months after what Hurricane Helene has done throughout the Southeast.  Some of our suppliers have been impacted, so there’s going to be some time for them to get back up and running, understandably. We’ll manage through that and keep pushing through.”

The goal is to get started on construction this year and be in the new facility by the fourth quarter of 2025, Przybyszewski said.

“You’ll see things go up quickly, then be slow because it takes a lot of time to do the interior work,” Przybyszewski said. “It’s going to be a long process.”