The 112-year-old insurance firm has hired Amcon Construction to begin the new facility along Highway 610, Kusch says. The company doesn't have to be located Downtown to be viable, he says. "We wanted a home office that we could actually call home. We've been around a long time, but there's no real reason for us to be Downtown, the suburbs offer a lot more flexibility and there's no real need to incur the Downtown costs."

He says he's not sure how much he pays per month for his current lease, which is up in October, but that the firm will eventually save money when it isn't paying rent. Also, the second building should help bring in revenue, Kusch says. "It's going to depend on what the market bears for when we will build the second facility, we're trying to get a read on the markets now. We're hoping to build the other building within the next five years," he says.

The firm's 110 employees are "shoe-horned in" the current space, Kusch says. The new building will better accommodate space needs, he says, but he doesn't see hiring more employees. "We've made quite an investment in technology, which helps us do the job better," Kusch says.

The company was established in 1896 when a group of farmers from Austin, MN organized the Farmers United Township Mutual Hall Association of Minnesota in order to provide crop hail and later farm windstorm insurance. The firm moved from Austin to Downtown Minneapolis in 1914. Kusch says the company's revenue has increased from $50 million in 2002 to $80 million in 2007. The firm has recently begun concentrating more on commercial coverage, he says.