When Capital City Fruit Co. moved to Norwalk from Des Moines in 1981, it was still a small produce company with just 19 employees. Since then, the business has grown into a regional distributor with 127 employees.

Now, the third-generation family-owned business is preparing for further growth, with plans to construct an 82,000-square-foot headquarters facility. In addition to providing an expandable space for Capital City Fruit, the $11.4 million warehouse/office project will open up development of a new 40-acre industrial site on Norwalk’s north side.

“We started thinking about this in 2007,” said Brendan Comito, the company’s chief operating officer. Its present building at 1505 North Ave. has been expanded nine times within the past 30 years. “One of our five-year goals was to be in a more efficient building by 2012, and it looks like that’s going to become a reality.”

The new facility, to be located east of Iowa Highway 28 and about a mile south of Echo Valley Country Club, will allow for more efficient workflows, beginning with separate entrances and parking lots for employees’ vehicles and the semitrailer trucks that are loaded and unloaded 24 hours a day.

Inside, the new office space will be together on one floor, rather than on two as it is now. The warehouse, which will be between 25,000 and 30,000 square feet larger, will actually use less energy, Comito said.

The project is being financed by City State Bank in Norwalk, along with a sizable investment by the family, Comito said. The warehouse portion of the project was designed by Food Facility Engineering Inc., a Yakima, Wash.-based firm. OPN Architects Inc. in Des Moines will design the office space. The Weitz Co. will be the general contractor.

In April, the Iowa Economic Development Board awarded $215,000 in direct financial assistance and tax incentives to Capital City Fruit for the project.

The Norwalk City Council in March voted to purchase a 40-acre parcel east of Highway 28 for $877,800. The company will buy a site on the east side of that parcel.

The city also plans to spend $2.7 million to extend Colonial Parkway to the east to provide access on the northern boundary of the industrial park. The city will request up to $1 million in funding for that project through a Revitalize Iowa’s Sound Economy (RISE) grant from the Iowa Department of Transportation.

The expansion is a win for Norwalk as well as the company, Comito said. “We’ll be the anchor for additional development,” he said. “I don’t anticipate that we’ll be alone for too long.”