Silver Lake Home Center planning drive-through warehouse

Mark Sherwood calls it a "supermarket approach to building materials."And your car is the shopping cart.Silver Lake Home Center has started construction on a 20,000-square-foot drive-through warehouse. Customers will be able to pick up building materials without leaving their vehicles.Completion is expected in early October."Basically we're moving all of our building material, such as lumber and plywood, that's outside into one building," said Sherwood, general manager of Silver Lake Home Center. "You drive through the first door, order your product, come through and pick everything up, and go right around the building and out the other side. You're able to pick up all your building materials under cover."Sherwood said the aisles will all be marked with signage for plywood, pine, vinyl siding and other materials."It's like the supermarket approach to building materials," he said. "The nicest thing is that it brings all the materials into one building and merchandises them like you see in a store. We'll do the same approach to building materials."Sherwood said the drive-through warehouse is modeled after a home-center in Sunapee. Response there has been "overwhelming," he said."People are able to come in out of the elements and pick up building material in one building rather than driving around outdoors and in sheds," Sherwood said. "As with most home centers, at this point you almost need a road map to navigate around to find everything you need to purchase. This pulls it all into one place."Silver Lake Home Center was started in 1983 by Sherwood's parent, John and Joan Sherwood. There is an 8,000-square-foot retail store and a 10,000-square-foot warehouse."The existing buildings will stay as they are," Sherwood said. "One of the warehouses is being retrofitted to act as a backup facility to the drive-through. We'll receive our bulk purchases into the warehouse we have now, and every night we'll restock the drive-through."Sherwood said Silver Lake Home Center has grown to the point that more warehouse space is definitely needed."This seemed like the most efficient type of warehouse to have, and it seems to be the wave of the future as far as streamlining and making it easier for people to buy building materials," he said.Sherwood said plans are on display at Silver Lake Home Center, and he welcomes anybody who wants to "take a look around or find out what we're doing."