A quiet company that has been thriving and growing in Michigan’s Great Southwest for more than 50 years is inviting you to help celebrate its latest expansion.
Special-Lite is a leader in high-performance commercial doors, frames, and architectural and engineered partitions, with manufacturing plants in Decatur and Benton Harbor. The company is planning a grand opening of its new corporate headquarters and expanded production facility in Decatur, Special-Lite’s ninth expansion. To celebrate this milestone, the custom door manufacturer will host a community open house and ribbon-cutting celebration on Oct. 15, 2025, from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The expansion represents one of the most significant investments in Special-Lite’s history, totaling 69,000 square feet. This includes 49,000 square feet of new manufacturing space, enabling additional investment in automation and CNC equipment, and bringing the company’s total manufacturing footprint to more than 194,000 square feet. The project adds 20,000 square feet of new office space across two floors for the company’s various non-production roles, a product showroom, a dedicated installation training area, and a lab for product testing.
Open House Schedule, Wed. October 15, 860 S. Williams, Decatur, 49045
- 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.: Meet and mingle with Special-Lite leadership, employees, and community partners
- 5:30 p.m.: Ribbon-cutting ceremony
- 5:45 p.m. – 7 p.m.: Guided tours of the new building and open hous
Other Details:
- Light refreshments and mini donuts from West Michigan food truck favorite, Ollys Donuts, will be available while supplies last.
- Goodie bags will be given to the first 100 visitors.
Special-Lite focused for years on the exterior door market. You have probably walked through many Special-Lite entry doors in schools, government or commercial buildings all over North America. As entryways were upgraded, there’s a good chance the choice for the door system was Special-Lite. More recently, the company has developed popular new products for the interior door and partition market, fueling another round of growth.
In an interview wth MoodyOnTheMarket.com, President and Chief Operating Officer Alex Esposito explained:
“This actually represents the, the 9th expansion for Special-Lite in the in the Decatur location. And really over the last three to five years, the growth has been driven by diversification of our market. If you roll the calendar back, the the lion’s share of our customers were in the K through 12 and university market segments. Since that time we’ve grown and we’re really proud of that growth into healthcare facilities.”
Esposito said the key to that growth has been the demonstrated quality of Special-Lite’s products:
“We make doors that that stand up very durably. They’re high quality. They last over time in really harsh environments. So any environment where that’s in play on the exterior side is a fit for a specialized door. And that translates to the other piece of growth moving from just exterior doors to interior. If there’s a new building going up, how many openings are in there? How many doors, how many windows, how many frames? That’s all in our wheelhouse.”
Special-Lite’s most recent major product roll-out is an aluminum and glass sliding door system that is perfect for healthcare installations: examining rooms, patient rooms, laboratories—almost anywhere that maximizing space is a priority. Like most Special-Lite products The SpecSlide Surface-Mounted Sliding Door System can be used in new construction or retrofitted in existing facilities without heavy construction work. That translates into important dollars saved for healthcare institutions.
Special-Lite employs about 200 persons in Decatur and 85 in its Benton Harbor plant on East Empire Avenue. Danielle Johnson, Director of Human Resources, told us they pride themselves on longtime employees, even a few multi-generational family members who work at Special-Lite. She pointed out that it’s common for employees to join the workforce as entry-level production workers, then rise to higher level positions through on the job and outside training programs offered by the company.
The Special-Lite leadership team takes pride in staying and growing in Decatur for half a century, despite opportunities to move the operation to Kalamazoo or Elkhart, where the labor pool may be “deeper.” They said the small-town values afforded by Decatur are actually a positive recruitment element as they seek to fill positions. Special-Lite anticipates increasing the workforce gradually by about 50 people over the next several years, with positions both in the plant and the headquarters offices.
COO Esposito had strong praise for the Village of Decatur and its support for the company over the years. He also thanked the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and Market One, Van Buren County’s economic development organization, for assistance in Special-Lite’s major expansion. He invited anyone who would like to learn more about Special-Lite and its increasingly international business presence to attend the Open House October 15.
Learn more at: www.special-lite.com
For an in depth look at Special-Lite products and innovations, follow the link here.