Manufacturer plans $5M expansion

FORT MYERS — Concrete-machinery manufacturer Somero Enterprises will spend $5 million to build a new corporate headquarters facility in Fort Myers.

Somero broke ground recently on a building at 14530 Global Parkway, near Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers. The 14,000-square-foot building will house the company's executive offices and training facility.

“We sell equipment in 93 countries so we have a lot of customers coming for in-house training on some of our equipment and to be able to do that year-round works better in Florida,” says Howard Hohmann, Somero's executive vice president, in a statement.

Somero has been developing and manufacturing equipment for the concrete and construction industry since the 1980s. The company relocated its corporate headquarters to Fort Myers from New Hampshire in late 2007. It also has a manufacturing facility in Houghton, Mich., and offices in the United Kingdom and Shanghai, China.

Fort Myers-based Chris-Tel Construction is building the headquarters facility and expects to complete the project in April.