Construction is underway on the $1.1 million project at Ironhouse Engineering, a consulting company on River Road in Lewiston, where they are adding office space to the former Provencher’s Landscape & Nursery. The Walmart Distribution Facility can be seen in the back left of the photo. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal Buy this Photo

Ironhouse Engineering is more than doubling in size at 299 River Road in Lewiston.

President Brian Langlais said he originally anticipated that the company, which specializes in consultant work for utilities and power generators, would have 12 to 15 local employees and a handful of remote workers.

“We hired 10 employees last year, so right now we’re at 24 employees total as a company, so we maxed out our local space,” he said. “We actually just hired a couple more people this week. We’re going to be closer to 16 locally and we’re anticipating in the next year to be up around 20 to 25 locally.”

Langlais worked for Central Maine Power Co. before starting his company.

“We can do our work from anywhere, really,” he said. “We just happen to do a lot of work in Maine but we’re starting to branch out a lot more throughout the northeast.”

The office space, a former barn, is getting a renovation on the existing 3,600-square feet and an addition of 4,266-square feet, a $1.1 million project, according to the city building permit. The look will stay the same.

“It’s a bit of a unique office, to be working out of a barn for a business office,” he said. “One of the challenges we had, too, it was a barn so it had a lot of hard surfaces; noise management was a challenge, having quiet places to take meetings.”

Construction is expected to wrap by October.

Quick hits about business comings, goings and happenings. Have a Buzzable tip? Contact staff writer Kathryn Skelton at 689-2844 or kskelton@sunjournal.com.