Dunn’s Electrical Lighting & Home Décor is relocating its ready-to-pour concrete mix production to St Catherine, in a move that will double the current operating space for the building product business. The expansion is a manifestation of the continuing boom in the real estate and construction market.

The company is said to have outgrown the current location at Spanish Town Road in Kingston and plans to move operations to Salt Pond Pen in

St Catherine. Details of the acquisition of the new location were not disclosed.

“We are in the process of relocating the plant,” Steve Dunn, the company’s managing director, told the Financial Gleaner in an interview on Monday.

Dunn said the new location spans over 10 acres compared to the Kingston location which is less than five acres.

Dunn’s first built its brand providing lighting and electrical products, but expanded the business to provide more goods within the construction sector. Contractors want to acquire many items in one location and the company aims to provide that convenience, the company executive said.

“Selling electrical and hardware products led us to concrete. The fact is that we keep investing in new products, new equipment and machinery to cater more to our core business, which is construction,” Dunn explained.

The company operates retail locations at Red Hills Road and Slipe Road in Kingston, and Portmore in St Catherine.

Dunn’s reportedly entered the ready-to-pour concrete market in late 2020 and sought to carve out sizeable market share.

Dunn said that other players entered the space within the year resulting in margins being squeezed. Volumes, however, continue to grow as a result of the real estate and construction boom, he said.

“It is quite competitive. The bigger guys can produce their own aggregate and that allows them to be way ahead in margins,” he noted.

The company buys cement, which it mixes at its building material plant with other ingredients, including aggregate and water. Dunn’s then trucks the ready-to-use product to clients at their construction sites.

The company said the new cement mix business location would also provide enough space to add new equipment and buy additional mixing trucks to better serve the market.

“Construction is booming. As soon as those apartments are up, they are sold. It’s looking good,” he said of the uptick in construction since the pandemic.

The Jamaican economy, still in recovery mode, grew 8.1 per cent for the fiscal year ending March 2022 at constant prices. The construction industry grew 7.0 per cent in the fiscal year, while the real estate renting and business activities remained flat, according to data from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, STATIN. The size of the construction sector was valued at $185.8 billion at current prices, according to STATIN.