Emsi, St. John Hardware enjoy new digs

Garrett Cabeza Daily News staff writer, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Moscow, Idaho
·2 min read

May 15—Emsi and St. John Hardware and Implement vacated their former Moscow locations and are operating at their new facilities.

Emsi, a labor market data company, built a four-story, 70,000-square-foot building on the former St. John Hardware property just south of the Moscow Recycling Center. It previously operated on Jackson Street, near the intersection of Sixth Street, but it outgrew the building.

The plans for the rest of the former St. John Hardware property — now owned by Emsi — have not been finalized, said Timothy van den Broek, Emsi chief operating officer and chief financial officer.

Emsi CEO Andrew Crapuchettes said the former St. John Hardware buildings, including the storefront on the corner of A and Jackson streets, will be demolished.

Emsi announced its expansion plans in 2019. At that time, van den Broek said that when Emsi met the 500-employee capacity of the new building, which it has not yet met, the plan would be to develop the 3.7-acre site further with sky bridges potentially connecting the first building on the property to other buildings. A parking structure could be built as well.

Van den Broek said he would be able to unveil Emsi's new plans in a couple months when they are finalized.

Meanwhile, St. John Hardware has been welcoming customers since April 1 at its new location on the Pullman-Moscow Highway in Whitman County just west of the Moscow city limits.

St. John's new digs include a retail showroom and separate tractor repair and maintenance facility. The two new buildings total about 30,000 square feet.

"We look forward to having the support from a bigger, better facility to increase our business and take better care of our customers," said Corey Schaeffer, St. John Hardware general manager.

He said the business's new location is better in terms of servicing and selling large farm machinery. Schaeffer said there were challenges in getting in and out of the A and Jackson streets location safely. He said the new location provides more space to operate the large machinery.

"The building turned out excellent and our shop is. We have everything that we need there to handle any repair for hopefully the foreseeable future because we really upgraded our shop," Schaeffer said.

Cabeza can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to gcabeza@dnews.com.