A fast-growing pillow manufacturer was given a chance to expand its Carver plant operations.
My Pillow, Inc. is the largest employer in Carver and the maker of MyPillow, of infomercial fame. The company had recently butted heads with neighbors and the city’s planning commission, which recommended prohibiting a night shift.
But on Monday night, the Carver City Council voted unanimously to issue a new conditional use permit to My Pillow, Inc. and property owners Dick and Jeanette Lenzen.
The permit approval is subject to 38 conditions, primarily intended to require improvements and clean-up of the site, and to reduce noise, traffic, lighting and other nuisances to residential neighbors, particularly during the evening.
Required improvements include painting the building, at 920 Sixth Street West, as well as erecting a 6-foot-tall wooden privacy fence and paving the entire parking lot. The City Council can later delete the fencing requirement if proven that it is not needed to satisfy neighbors.
One condition spells out the process for the city to revoke the permit “for violation of any of the conditions herein.”
Mayor Greg Osterdyk and Councilors Glen Henry, Cindy Monroe, Carrie Newhouse and Mike Webb sided with My Pillow, Inc. founder and CEO/Chairman of the Board Mike Lindell on the central issue of allowing the company to operate around-the-clock, including a third shift from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Approving the 24-hour operation rejected recommendations by the Carver Planning Commission and several neighbors to limit production hours. Planning commissioners wanted to prohibit operations from 9 p.m. each night through 6 a.m. the next morning.
The new permit replaces one issued to Dick Lenzen in 1999 that My Pillow, Inc. violated during the past two years by producing pillows around-the-clock, despite that permit limiting operating hours. My Pillow, Inc. has leased space from the Lenzens since 2004.
“I’ve had a third shift on and off probably two years,” Lindell told councilors. “I didn’t know all these things in the permit.”
The 1999 permit required Dick Lenzen to give a copy of the permit to each of his current and future prospective tenants so they would be aware of the permit conditions. Lenzen told the Chaska Herald that he never gave a copy of the permit to any tenant.
The company and Lenzens jointly applied for a new permit once Lindell and the Lenzens signed a purchase agreement for My Pillow, Inc. to buy the property.
Lindell said after the council vote that he was satisfied with the outcome.
“Absolutely, I’m satisfied,” he said. “I think we are going to do a good job for Carver.”
PURCHASE SHELVED
But moments later he said the purchase is shelved for now and that he intends to negotiate a new lease for more space inside the building, with an option to buy the property in fresh talks with Dick Lenzen.
He earlier told councilors that potential permit revocation was a major obstacle.
“I’m not going to risk my business,” Lindell said. “You would shut me down. You are leaving my business to your discretion.”
Before the council meeting, Lindell told the Chaska Herald that he would not buy or continue to lease the Lenzens’ property and would move his main production program out of Carver if the City Council denied his request for 24-hour operations.
“I won’t lay off a shift of my employees for anyone,” Lindell said during a brief interview.
Asked where the pillow production would move, Lindell said it would not be elsewhere in Carver, but he declined to identify a location, only saying, “I have my ducks lined up.”
The new permit application triggered complaints from about a dozen residents about noise, traffic, lights shining in their windows and employees trespassing on their property, many of the objections happening during overnight hours.
Complaints were made via e-mail, telephone and in personal remarks to the Carver Planning Commission last month and to the City Council on Monday.
“Mike, I’m very glad your business is growing, but I have heard complaints about noise and people coming over the berm [onto residential property],” Linda Schutz, who rents out her Kirche Hill Drive home, told the City Council.
Newhouse said she heard residents clearly.
“I want to thank the residents,” she said. “This is not an easy decision.”
Osterdyk said the new permit is clearer than the former one and does a better job of protecting residents.
“What we are doing here is far better from the residents’ perspective,” he said. “The onus goes on Mike and his management to take care of the issues.”
Lindell assured councilors that he is in a transition process to resolve complaints from residents.
RAPID GROWTH
Lindell, 50, of Victoria, invented his open-cell, poly-foam pillow and started the business in 2004, selling his first 80 pillows at a rented kiosk in Eden Prairie Center. His unique pillow was issued a United States patent in 2008.
My Pillow, Inc. now has about 30 pillow products and accessories, but Lindell said last November that 95 percent of the sales are bed pillows named MyPillow.
Sales soared once Lindell’s marketing efforts broadened to infomercials starring himself on the Internet and cable television and similar advertising campaigns and interviews in newspapers and television and radio programs. He expects sales to reach $30 million this year, tripling last year.
My Pillow, Inc. had 40 employees in February 2010, grew to about 200 in November 2011 and now stands at 378 and still growing, Lindell said.
About 185 employees work in Carver, including about 150 at the manufacturing plant and 35 at a customer call center in the old schoolhouse, 420 Oak Street North, he said.
Growth since November 2011 prompted Lindell to start a satellite manufacturing operation with about 50 employees in Cokato and to expand call center operations by opening an office for about 100 workers in Chanhassen, he said.
The remaining workers are sales employees who travel across the nation to home shows, fairs, craft shows and military bases.
Last November, Lindell told the Chaska Herald; “Within three years, one-fifth of the world’s population will be sleeping on MyPillow. That is my goal. What Amway did in 30 years, I’m going to do in three.”
He told Carver City Council his new goal: “I’m going to be the biggest company in the world, quite frankly.”