The Place To Be

Vantage debuts its Northeast Regional Service Center in Queens, New York, in grand style.

photos courtesy of Vantage Elevator Solutions

The grand opening on the evening of November 16, 2022, of the Vantage Regional Service Center in Astoria, Queens, New York, was befitting of such an impressive new facility. Vantage Elevator Solutions customers, suppliers and partners — essentially most of the NYC-area elevator industry movers and shakers — gathered at the service center at 19-19 37th Street in Astoria for a tour, lots of Vantage swag, beverages, games and an eclectic array of food options from several local food trucks. Around tables festooned with black, white and yellow balloons on which sat Vantage product catalogues, T-shirts, insulated tumblers and personal hand sanitizers, guests enjoyed playing cornhole, drinking wine and craft beer and sampling such foods as cheeseburgers (both vegetarian and carnivore), gourmet sandwiches from a kosher deli, Korean tacos and miniature donuts. A deejay helped set the celebratory mood with popular music. 

The party served as a grand welcome for the new service center — Vantage’s sixth in North America — which houses warehouse space, offices, training space, meeting areas and a kitchen/break room within 23,000 ft². Vantage Senior Marking and Communications Manager Kimberly Berkowitz elaborates: 

“Customers will have convenient access to the center, with loading docks on both 37th and 38th streets for convenient and quick product pickups. The Regional Service Center also features the R. Carl Burch Memorial Training Center that will serve as a dedicated product and technical training event space named in honor of longtime Vantage team member Carl Burch.” 

Burch passed away in August after a prolonged illness (ELEVATOR WORLD, October 2022). A resident of Nashville, Tennessee, he had been a member of Vantage’s engineering technical support team since 2011 and was beloved by his colleagues. A framed portrait of Burch looks over the teaching stations in the technical training space. Lining the perimeter of the space are hands-on modules featuring the GALaxy IV traction and eHydro elevator controllers, Elevator Controls Pixel Model microcomputer-based AC Controller, a Courion freight elevator door, Courion’s iLearn door control system and various car operating panels. 

A long hallway leading into the service center is like a museum with detailed wall displays offering a trip through time, from the birth of company founder Herb Glaser in 1903 and his arrival in America in 1923 on to the present day.

A long hallway leading into the service center is like a museum with detailed wall displays offering a trip through time, from the birth of company founder Herb Glaser in 1903 and his arrival in America in 1923 on to the present day with the latest Regional Service Center openings: Dallas and New York regional in 2022. Company milestones are described — the first GAL interlock (1927), door operator (1945) and controller (1951), and even the first GAL advertisement in EW from our inaugural year, 1953. Displays focusing on the various iterations of Vantage, and its expansions and investments (including Freight Tech, Courion, Bore-Max and Elevator Controls) are interspersed with ones describing what was going on in the world at the time: the Wright brothers’ first flight, the debut of the Model T, Neil Armstrong becoming the first person to walk on the Moon and even the Beatles and fall of the Berlin Wall. 

A Positive for Partners

The Northeast Regional Service Center is a positive for GAL partner companies. GAL Manufacturing Corp., part of San Francisco-based Golden Gate Capital’s portfolio, acquired Comprehensive Manufacturing Services, LLC, also known as Courion, in 2018 (EW, March 2018). Freight Tech, LLC, a NYC-based International Union of Elevator Constructors freight door services contractor was a wholly owned subsidiary of Courion  and part of that transaction. For years, Freight-Tech operated out of warehouse space in Bayshore, Long Island, but has now expanded into the new service center. The Bayshore space, which Freight-Tech Director Chuck Tyler says is “hours from the NYC metro area,” is still used for storage and some large-scale repairs and fabrications, but the company now primarily operates out of the new space in Queens. Tyler says: 

“We are excited to have our business office now located at the Vantage Regional Service Center in Astoria, as well as more than 2,000 ft2 of shop space dedicated to Freight-Tech within the facility. This new space allows us to be closer to the city with inventory, materials and a home base as we grow to better service the elevator companies in the New York/New Jersey markets with their freight elevator projects.” 

Ready To Serve

Vantage’s new Regional Service Center, like similar regional service centers in Santa Fe Springs, California; Irving, Texas; Elk Grove Village, Illinois; Miami Gardens, Florida; and GAL Canada, provides the whole suite of Vantage products, Berkowitz says. In addition to a warehouse stocked with a wide range of spare parts, regional service centers provide local resources for sales, technical support, training and project coordination. Staffed by approximately 15 people, the new Northeast Regional Service Center is open Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Customers still have the option to pick up both parts and completed orders at the GAL Manufacturing location in the Bronx. It can be reached at 917-336-4597.