For nearly 80 years, Green Line Equipment has been serving the needs of farmers, ranchers and townsfolks.

Now the company has expanded to a spacious, state-of-the-art building at 4050 W. Stolley Park Road, Grand Island, Neb.

Greg Rerucha, Green Line Equipment site and after-market manager, said the business built the building to “show our commitment to the future of our customers, employees and the local community.”

“We felt our loyal and progressive area customers would appreciate us making a long-term investment in the future of the area,” Rerucha said.

Ground was broken on Oct. 3, 2011.

“Chief Construction worked their tails off to make sure we were occupying the building in a year,” Rerucha said.

Green Line began moving into its new location the first week of this October.

“Chief was wonderful to work with,” he said. “We are proud to say we used all local contractors, and they all did exemplary work.”

Green Line’s roots go back to 1934 in St. Paul. Thirty-three years later, Rerucha’s father, Lynos Rerucha, built the location the company vacated just last month.

“He built the old facility on West Highway 30 in 1967, which at the time was considered way outside of town,” Greg Rerucha said.

As the business expanded, the facility was no longer meeting the company’s needs.

“We literally had two people sharing a file room, there were temporary offices in the showroom, and the shop doors could not handle today’s large equipment,” Rerucha said. “We had already added on three times, and we were bursting at the seams. We had our administrative staff in a separate building, and now we are all under one roof.

“We had a 2,200-square-foot showroom, and with all the Gators, lawnmowers and small compact utilities, we didn’t have much room,” he said. “Now we are carrying Honda products, and they have a variety of walk-behind equipment, generators and pumps, and we literally could not display the wares we had.”

The new building is 55,000 square feet with a 10,000-square-foot mezzanine. The shop is 22,500 square feet with two overhead cranes, in-floor heat and two giant overhead fans to keep technicians comfortable year around. It has 30-foot ceilings and one large 40-foot door.

“Our loyal employees have embraced the bright and safe work environment,” Rerucha said.

When deciding to build the new building, Rerucha said, Green Line “looked at quite a few potential locations.”

They even drew up plans to expand at their old location, but the more thought was put into it, the less attractive that option looked.

“The trigger that made us decide to build new is that we were still going to be at 13 acres over there, and building a bigger building was going to take those acres away and potential display areas,” Rerucha said. “We would have been more landlocked.”

With the development along North Road, Rerucha said, those new houses “were going to eventually encroach upon us.”

Chief Industries built the new building for Green Line, along with supplying the land in exchange for the old site, which Chief will use for its own expansion.

Green Line has additional locations in Aurora, Central City, Spalding, Albion, Neligh, Plainview and Norfolk and 165 employees.

Business for Green Line Equipment has grown as the agriculture economy has grown.

“Grain prices have been strong,” Rerucha said. “That helps.”

Technology is also driving the farm equipment business. Equipment is getting bigger and more sophisticated. Rerucha said they had to redesign the size of the doors on the new facility just to be able to fit in some of the larger equipment John Deere is making.

“John Deere is very aggressive,” he said. “They are on the leading edge of a lot of new technology. They introduced stuff very quickly, and it is hard for us to keep pace.

“We thought we owed it to our loyal employees to give them a nice facility that they could be proud of and which will enhance the quality of customer service our farmers and consumers deserve from Green Line,” Rerucha said.

Green Line through the years:

1934 — Father and son Alvin and Clarence Southard start a John Deere store in St. Paul named Southard Implement.

1961 — Lynos Rerucha joins Southard Implement in St. Paul.

1967 — Southard Implement purchases John Deere franchise from Chicago Lumber in Grand Island and opens new store on West Highway 30.

1989 — Green Line Equipment purchases John Deere dealer in Norfolk.

1990 — Russ Rerucha, Lyons’ son, starts work in Grand Island.

1994 — Green Line Equipment purchases John Deere dealer in Plainview.

1996 — Green Line Equipment purchases John Deere dealers in Neligh and Central City.

1996 — Greg Rerucha, Lyons’ son, starts work at Norfolk location, later transfers to Grand Island.

2002 — Green Line Equipment purchases John Deere dealer in Aurora.

2009 — Green Line Equipment purchases John Deere dealerships in Albion and Spalding.

2012 — Green Line builds new building in Grand Island.