As published in Toledo Business Journal - October 1, 2015
Rendering of Midwest Tape’s new headquarters in Holland
Midwest Tape breaks ground on $12M+ HQ
Midwest Tape, an international distributor of public library content, broke ground on a $12-13 million, 135,360 square foot global headquarters in late-September. It is located at the Wolf Creek Business Park in Holland, only a few miles from the company’s current headquarters.
The company has more than 350 employees in Holland, as well as satellite offices in Chicago and Toronto, and ships more than 13 million physical and digital CDs, DVDs, and audiobooks annually.
“Our new Holland headquarters will be a distribution center and a hub of content creation and tech innovation,” said Midwest Tape vice president and founder of Hoopla Digital, Jeff Jankowski. “It is designed to host Midwest Tape and will enable us to serve our library customers throughout North America and beyond as we help them define a new era. To do that, we’ll need a headquarters that not only fosters creativity and innovative thinking for our business, but one that is also capable of housing the growing physical needs of our valued library customers.”
Midwest Tape owner and president John Eldred said he hopes to move into the new facility in 2016, which will include a 100,800 square foot warehouse and a 34,560 square foot office building housing both Midwest Tape and Hoopla Digital employees. Rudolph Libbe is the general contractor for this project; The jdi group, Inc. is providing architecture and engineering services; and Feller, Finch & Associates, Inc. is providing civil engineering services.
“Just over a year ago I got a call from John Eldred driving through the countryside,” said Jeff Colvin, operations manager for Midwest Tape. “He gave me direction to find a campus for Midwest Tape with three conditions, and those conditions are that our world-class customer service never misses a beat through this whole thing, he wanted a campus that would make employees feel good about coming to work, and it needed to be close to our existing facility because if we lost one employee because of the move the whole thing probably wouldn’t be worth it, which shows you the commitment that Jeff and John have had to both the employees and to the customers, which are libraries across the United States.”
Midwest Tape began as Sights and Sounds, a video rental store started by Eldred in 1983.
“When I got into it we were strictly used VHS, and then we got into new VHS, then we got into DVDs, then we got into CDs, then we got into audiobooks,” said Eldred. “We got into repackaging, which is a huge part of our business; we repackage about 65% of what we sell so it’s shelf-ready for the libraries. Then we got into cataloguing for the libraries. We do everything, and then when they receive it all they need to do is take it out of the box.”
“We owe a huge thanks to the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library and its director, Clyde Scoles,” he continued. “They were our first video customer. Then Columbus, Ohio was very, very helpful, and Ohio is still our biggest state and our strongest state. They have been phenomenally loyal to us and that’s why we stay in Ohio, and our employees have been very loyal to us. I think I have 30 people who worked for me when I sold my video store to Blockbuster in 1997 come back to work for me over the years, so we are very loyal to our employees and there are a lot of employees who are very loyal to us.”
Midwest Tape’s digital division, Hoopla Digital, partners with public libraries across North America to provide online and mobile access to hundreds of thousands of movies, TV shows, full-length music albums, eBooks, audiobooks, and comics, according to the company.
“Hoopla is a service we offer through our public libraries that enables anyone with a library card to borrow thousands of music, movies, and more with their library card 24/7,” said Jankowski. “With that we allow streaming and downloading. Where we’re different from other tech companies is that everything is done with one app, so we’re really a mobile-centric platform, so if you want to download an entire movie for off-line viewing you can do that, so our technology is really different, it’s world class.”
“We have a lot of really talented technical folks, and we’ve developed into a technology company – our website is like baby Amazon for libraries,” he continued. “We really work closely with libraries to make their lives easy and to support whatever services and business plans that they need done.
Sitework in progress at Midwest Tape’s new headquarters
“Hoopla digital is going to keep us very, very busy, because the new generation is mobilely active,” said Eldred. “Keeping up with all the iPhones and the Androids and the iPads is a full time job for about 8-10 people, that’s all they do is make sure our apps work with all these other things. We continue to look for new entertainment, and we have four people where all they do is look for new things to put on our website. We’re direct with Disney and Warner Brothers, and we’re one of HBO’s best distributors in the country for educational content, we do a phenomenal job with that. And besides that we have Dreamscape where we publish audiobooks and videos, we buy the rights to them and record them in house and we produce them.”
Eldred said he considers his company to be heavily local and family oriented, though he seeks to expand internationally and is already working in Australia and England.
“Holland is our home, and our employees have fueled our success for more than 25 years,” said Eldred. “This is where we have raised our families, it’s where we have built our business, and it’s where we will expand into our future.”
Eldred particularly wanted to thank the Toledo Public Library for its loyalty and guidance, and the Holland community for hosting Midwest Tape for so many years.
“Midwest Tape’s decision to stay and grow in Holland is an exciting one and we look forward to delivering a building that’s a true reflection of the company’s tech, innovation, and culture,” said Brad Delventhal, business development manager, Rudolph Libbe Inc.
“Midwest Tape has always been a company that strives for excellence for its business and employees. Springfield Township is thrilled to welcome the company to our community,” said Leslie Kohli, Springfield Township administrator. “With this new headquarters, Holland is home to Midwest Tape and Hoopla Digital, each recognized and respected nationally for its service to public libraries, its digital innovations, and its commitment to the community it calls home.”
