Wallace Building Products adding production center in Tilton

TILTON — Thanks to its proximity to Interstate 93, the town is poised to receive several benefits, among them new housing and more property taxes, from the relocation of Wallace Building Products from Danbury.

Located on the Danbury-Wilmot town line on Route 4, Wallace was founded in 2001, and is an employee-owned company.

In June 2025, Wallace purchased 120 acres on Manville Road in Tilton, Chris Tremblay, co-president, said during an Oct. 31 telephone interview. The company will use 16 acres for a new production facility, he said, and is also looking to build up to 240 apartments. He said the remaining 70 acres could be converted into industrial lots.

Groundbreaking for the project could take place in spring or summer of 2027, he said.

According to its website, Wallace “is one of the largest providers of complete prefab wood frame materials packages and turn-key framing in the Northeast USA.

”Whether you plan to build a single-family home or a 500-unit multi-family development, we can provide a Precut-Prefab package that will shorten your construction schedule and cut your framing labor costs by up to 50% or more.”

In addition to its Danbury facility, which is expected to remain open for a while before eventually closing, Tremblay said Wallace also has a site in Pembroke, where it builds trusses.

“Moving to Tilton lets us consolidate two locations in one,” Tremblay said, acknowledging that, compared with Danbury, “Tilton is much closer to the highway,” which makes it more accessible to Wallace’s clients in the greater Boston area, New Hampshire and Maine.

“We had been looking for some land for a few years,” he said, “and the Tilton property became available, and we bought it.”

“Our facility will consume about 16 acres, and we will build in phases, and will start with buildings for storage and also our truss line,” Tremblay said of the new location.

At present, he said Wallace has about 50 employees, and with the addition of another shift in Tilton, will add 10 more.

Tilton offers Wallace access to a larger labor pool, too, Tremblay said, but the very special thing it has over Danbury is its own railroad spur.

The spur is operated by the Vermont Rail System. In the Granite State, the system includes a line between Whitefield and Northumberland; between Bloomfield, Vermont, and Colebrook; and between Concord and Belmont.

Wallace has a “reload center” in Vermont, Tremblay said, adding the rail spur, in Tilton, will allow it to ship in raw materials from that site, and ship out finished goods.

Asked about Wallace’s future, Tremblay said it is bright, as is that of the entire prefabricated-products industry.

“The average age of a construction worker is about 56, and there are fewer of them,” Tremblay said, adding there may come a time when workers who know traditional “stick built” construction are rare.

“Prefab is growing, and there’s going to be greater demand for it,” he said.

Wallace serves customers who build mostly commercial properties and apartments. The company, in Tremblay’s opinion, is “a major player.”

He said Wallace has subdivided 21 acres for apartments in Tilton, and is finalizing a site plan to the planning board. He said Wallace is looking at whether it should build the apartments itself, or sell the development rights to another party.

The apartments would be available to the general public and employees, “but that’s a long way out and nothing is certain,” according to Tremblay.

He said Tilton and the greater community have been “excellent to work with.” The Wallace project in Tilton, Tremblay continued, would not require many municipal resources; would create jobs; and would add “lots to the town in revenue.”

Already home to a vibrant retail economy, the town in recent years has seen the construction of the U-Haul Moving and Storage center, and of The Lake Estate on Winnisquam, both located on Route 3.

The town, by sometime next April, will also have a 50,000-square-foot Amazon distribution center, currently under construction in the Nickerson Business Park.

The Tilton Planning Board, according to Oct. 28, 2025 meeting minutes, approved Wallace’s site plan application for the main campus; later it approved 240 units of housing.

The main campus would be made up of six buildings in total, beginning in phase I with a 95,000-square-foot structure, and 16,000-square-foot warehouse. Subsequent phases would add 12,000 square feet to the main building, plus another 19,200-square-foot structure, and one more of 11,200 square feet. The property is served by municipal sewer and an onsite well.

No members of the public spoke about the Wallace application, according to the meeting minutes.

Steve Weeks Jr., of Weeks Commercial — the commercial real estate division of ReMax Innovative Bayside — said Tilton’s location makes it now, and into the future, a desirable place to be for companies.

Tilton is in the heart of the state, he said during a telephone interview Nov. 2, and that geographic heart has I-93 running through it. Not only does I-93 run through the town center, there are both north and south exits.

That kind of infrastructure, and to some extent, a rail spur, make Weeks believe “Tilton will continue to grow.”

“There isn’t a lot developable land left there around the I-93 interchange,” he said, “but there is a little bit, and I think it will continue to attract businesses.”