Jan. 28, 2022

The Rolls-Royce showroom in Seattle now has a Sioux Falls connection.

It’s the first project done for the automaker by Creative Surfaces, which is helping finish multiple spaces in the showroom.

“It’s pretty unique and complicated – all curved, solid-surface, custom stainless steel,” CEO Jud Pins said. “It’s the first of this new flagship Rolls-Royce.”

Creative Surfaces manufactured a large selection table where customers choose paint colors and interiors for vehicles, a speak-easy style bar, the reception desk, manager’s office finishes and displays for apparel.

“They’re small showrooms, but they’re very unique, high-end cars,” Pins said. “It was so unique with woods and metals and stainless steel and a lot of engineers involved to make it all happen.”

The latest line of business built on a record year for Creative Surfaces in 2021, which Pins estimates closed up 20 percent over the company’s previous record year.

In one way, it was multiple years’ worth of business combined into one as certain sectors the company supports rebounded in a big way.

“The biggest segment of our business is the casino industry, and that has really gone crazy,” Pins said. “It roared back after COVID.”

That includes a proprietary project for casinos to integrate a small sportsbook that should be rolling out this year, he said.

The company also has started working with new fitness brands, including Defy Extreme Air Sports, and it is installing new check-in desks at the Sioux Falls Regional Airport.

It also outfitted the new Sanford children’s play area there.

The year could have been even busier if supply chain issues hadn’t held some projects back, Pins said.

“Our people did a great job managing the supply chain stuff because we do import product from around the country, and we had to increase our inventories to try and eliminate that, but we were able to keep our lead times fairly steady,” he said.

Growth also is leading to expansion within the company’s locations. In Sioux Falls, Creative Surfaces bought the former Dakota Millwork site in the industrial area near the airport, which will give the company 150,000 square feet among its buildings in the area.

The plan is to move the countertop division into the new building this spring, ultimately freeing up space for the growing sign shop.

The company also had a record year as a Cambria distributor and is opening a Cambria Gallery in Rapid City.

Record apartment construction is contributing to the growth, Pins said.

“Rapid City is exploding, and we’ve been part of that, and on the multifamily end, we sell cabinets to furnish most of the apartments going up around the state,” he said.