Editor’s Note: Heritage Tractor was featured in a Rural Lifestyle Dealer Season-to-Season feature. Read their story.

Heritage Tractor, the Lawrence, Kan., John Deere dealership, reopened in late January after it was destroyed by a fire in May 2018. The building caught fire after a transformer fell onto the roof causing the interior building to ignite.

Heritage Tractor’s 20 employees officially moved into the new building at 1110 E 23^rd Street in Lawrence in early November. The state-of-the art facility has more service capacity than the previous building with features including three turf equipment lifts to increase technician efficiency. Customer experience and employee efficiency drove design decisions. The new building sits on the western edge of the property, rather than the center, to provide more parking and easier access for large trucks. Inside, innovative sales and service pods will allow for faster customer transactions. 

According to employees and the first customers to see the building, the coolest feature of the new store is by far the John Deere historical mural that blankets two full walls of the showroom.

“John Deere is a brand with an impressive history of innovation. We wanted to pay homage to that heritage through this mural so that future generations could see the brand’s connection to our agricultural roots,” says Tim Deneke, Lawrence Store Manager. 

The original facility was built in 1955 and the location on 23^rd Street has been a John Deere dealership ever since. With that history and the easy access from K-10 Highway, Heritage Tractor decided to keep the original location for the new store.

The extremely wet weather caused construction delays, but that did not stop the employees from helping their customers. Heritage Tractor conducted business in a temporary location across the street. After clean-up and blueprints were complete, construction began in March of 2019.

HASTCO Construction, a Topeka-local company, completed the construction of the project. HASTCO specializes in John Deere dealership construction in the Midwest and has completed more than 20 dealership projects, including other Heritage Tractor locations.