Growing local business Hard Decks to erect new headquarters in Belvidere

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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BELVIDERE — A growing family-owned business that specializes in installing and repairing home decks broke ground Friday on its future headquarters at the city’s eastern gateway.

Hard Decks, a serious contractor with an admittedly sophomoric name, is investing $700,000 to build its first storefront at 2185 N. State St., which is next to Maggio’s Food Bar Slots.

“We love our city of Belvidere. We want to get out in front of people and let them know we’re here,” said Andy Dawley, who co-owns the business with his son-in-law, Jayme Carlson. Both are Belvidere natives. “We handle Winnebago and Boone counties with probably 90% of our work. We handle it all over and we love working this area, there’s a lot of good people. We want to make sure they get the best decks in the country.”

Hard Decks held its ceremonial groundbreaking Friday with officials from Growth Dimensions Economic Development, the city of Belvidere and Boone County. They expect the new 5,000-square-foot building to be in operation by the end of the year, with the final touches complete by next spring.

Pamela Lopez-Fettes, chief executive of Growth Dimensions, said the company is positioning itself in a growth corridor.

That area of State Street has seen increased traffic with its spot between Rock Valley College’s Advanced Technology Center, which draws students from the area, and Hard Rock Casino Rockford, which draws visitors from around the region. There are also new restaurants being built nearby on the former site of Dodge Lanes, which was razed to make way for Chipotle and Starbucks.

“This is a corridor that we see tremendous growth,” Lopez-Fettes said. “In the future we’re going to see much more commercial and maybe even some mixed residential opportunities.”

Growth Dimensions assisted the company by helping it write a grant to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity that could help offset some of its construction costs.

Lopez-Fettes vouched for the quality of the work, saying she had the company install a deck at her house.

The business has been in operation for about five years and run mostly out of the owners homes. Now, it will have its first office, showroom, conference room and shop in one space.

“All of those components have been scattered everywhere, up until now,” Carlson said. “Bringing it all under one roof is going to be so big for us.”

The business employs eight people, including several members of the family.

About that name

If you don’t recognize the pun that the name Hard Decks is alluding to, we’ll congratulate you on your maturity.

“We get a lot of comments about it, trust me,” Dawley said. “We get some pictures taken at stop lights and such — people taking out their phones and pointing and laughing.”

Most people take the name with good humor. And for Hard Decks, it has provided a bit of viral marketing from people who want to snap a picture of the logo and share it on social media.

“Obviously, we’re not shy about it,” Carlson said. “It started kind of as a joke, but once you start understanding the marketing and the branding that can go with something like that — the memorability of it and the recognizability — we ended up getting more and more serious about it and kind of ran with it.”

The name also has a two-fold meaning.

“We build some very hard decks, they’re very difficult to build,” Dawley said.

“We do easy ones, too,” Carlson said.

No hard wood

The company bills itself as a luxury deck builder that also handles repairs, restoration and replacement.

It focuses on composite options, such as Trex and TimberTech, rather than wooden decks. Carlson said that’s both because of the quality they see in composite and the direction they’ve seen the market heading.

“Composite is just head and shoulders above the quality, the finished product and the long-term maintenance,” he said.

They said part of their goal for the company is to improve the image of contractors. That’s not just on the quality of the work, but on the service, communication and straightforwardness of the process.

“Contractors have a pretty bad rap, for good reason. We’re trying to do our part to improve the image of what a contractor is and what you can expect,” Carlson said. “We’re trying our best to raise the bar for the industry as a whole.”

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas