A DUNDEE-based lift engineering specialist has signalled its ambition to hike turnover by investing £1 million in new headquarters in the City of Discovery.

Caltech Lifts, which was established by Howard Renwick in 1978 and has been run by two of his sons, Andrew and Fraser, since 2013, said growth has until now been constrained by the limitations of its base at the Port of Dundee.

The company, which supplies and maintains passenger, goods, disabled access and stair lifts, said the acquisition of Affinity House in Dryburgh Industrial Estate will give it the capacity to hike turnover to £6m. Calsum Property, a commercial property firm set up by Andrew and Fraser Renwick with two business associates, acquired the building from Affinity Business Centre Limited.

The property includes the 2,000 square-metre Affinity Business Centre, two warehouses spanning 666 square metres, a 0.4-acre service yard with 5kW wind turbine, and a 40-space car park with seven electric vehicle charging points.

The Renwicks and their partners will continue to run Affinity House as a fully-let business centre. Caltech will use one of the warehouses as well as an open-plan office which includes an internal office, meeting room, kitchen and can accommodate 25 people. It also aims to set up a showroom for passenger lifts, platform lifts and stairlifts, allowing clients to see them in person before buying.

Andrew Renwick said: “This was always a hefty goal for us on our road to the future Caltech we envision - one we’ve been looking to achieve for the last eight years. We looked at several premises, but it had to be the perfect place for us.

“This move will allow us space to accommodate more staff, equipment and parts for increased orders as we grow from £4.2m turnover and six-figure profit in 2022-23 towards our £4.5m 2023-4 turnover target and on to our £6m growth aim.

“Our three-year goals are doubling our maintenance portfolio, further expanding our service south of the border, opening an office in Glasgow to better support the team working there and increasing our turnkey installations by 50% - where we take on a principal contractor role and bring in our sub-contractors associated with the complete all-trades work associated with lift installations.

“Our customers will benefit from being able to come and see our product offerings; the bigger warehouse allowing more parts to be held in stock, so enabling quicker repairs; more efficient back-office support to our field engineers as we look to add to our admin and operations team, which will make things more slick and streamlined and better prices from manufacturers as the volume of our sales increases.

“Part of our growth strategy is long-term investment, so this continues that. We always aimed to be ‘live-in landlords’ as it makes sense for the business and we’re confident we’ll be good at it.”