Officials with Lawrence’s Amarr Garage Doors opened the first phase of a $17.3 million expansion Wednesday and said they were getting closer to expanding the company’s full-time work force.

The company, located in the East Hills Business Park, began shipping garage doors out of 12 new loading docks that were recently completed as part of the expansion project.

The new loading docks are the first step in eventually doubling the production capacity of the plant, which is expected to add 80 full-time jobs within the next three years.

“This is just the first phase, but it is really a critical phase for us,” said Delbert Phlipot, vice president of manufacturing for the company.

Kirsten Krug, manager of the company’s people department, said she expected the company to begin hiring full-time workers within the next six months. She said the new positions were expected to pay an average wage of $12.50 an hour.

In the meantime, the company has hired about 25 part-time workers to staff a new Saturday and Sunday shift. Krug said the company was accepting applications to fill a few remaining positions.

The new shift was made possible, in part, because the expansion reduces the amount of product that is waiting to be shipped out of the plant.

“In the past we’ve had to slow down our production lines because we had run out of space here in the building,” said Sandy Crabaugh, director of manufacturing for the company. “This is really going to make us more efficient.”

Phlipot said the company was positioning itself to take a larger share of the growing garage door market. He said the company had been increasing its sales by about 15 percent per year for the past five to seven years.

“The biggest thing for us is that we have been able to be innovative with some new products,” Phlipot said.

The North Carolina-based company has been finding sales success with a new “pinch-resistant” garage door that is designed to make it more difficult for people to accidentally get their hand caught in the hinge of a closing door. The company also recently introduced the first steel “carriage house” garage door, which is designed to look like old-style wood garage doors.

The Lawrence plant manufactures all of the company’s steel doors, including both of the new products.

The strong U.S. housing market also has helped fuel the company’s growth, company officials said. The company expects the housing market to remain strong and is preparing for a particularly busy 2005, in part because of Mother Nature.

“All the hurricanes in Florida will have an impact on us,” Crabaugh said. “It is very unfortunate for all the residents down there, but it does help the building industry.”

The loading dock expansion added about 40,000 square feet to the Lawrence facility. When the entire expansion is completed, likely in April, it will add 130,000 square feet to the 250,000-square-foot plant. In addition to loading docks, the expansion will include space for new production, warehouse and office functions.

The company late last year received a 10-year, 55 percent tax abatement from the City Commission to locate the project in Lawrence. The company said it had considered locating the project in Mexico or an undisclosed Midwestern site that was closer to its steel supplier.