Vancouver’s Coastal Contacts Inc. (TSX:COA) is tearing down more walls at its headquarters in the Broadway Tech Centre located at East Broadway and Renfrew Street.
Two years ago, Coastal, which sells eyeglasses and contacts online, occupied only 625 square feet and had two small glass-cutting machines at the centre.
When the company completes the expansion it started two weeks ago, it will occupy 4,400 square feet at the centre and will have eight larger glass-cutting machines.
When reached by BIV on Tuesday, Coastal’s communications manager Jennifer Harvey said “the demand for glasses has been huge, and so to meet that demand we need to ramp up.”
The company shipped more than 60,000 pairs of eyeglasses and generated $4.7 million in revenue last quarter, a 24% revenue increase over 2010’s first quarter.
Its revenue in 2009’s first quarter was $1.3 million.
The company has hired 60 lab techs in two years, including 20 in the last three months.
Coastal is not disclosing the capital costs of its expansion.
Harvey said the company, which is among the world’s top three online glasses manufacturers, believes it will be the top online glasses manufacturer in a year, based on the manufacturing facility and capabilities it has built up.
Harvey said the B.C. government’s decision last month to eliminate the requirement that optometrists and opticians dispense eyeglasses in B.C. has not affected revenue because B.C. is only a fraction of its market.
Rather, the decision was a symbolic victory for Coastal and reinforced its online business model.
BIV last reported about the regulatory battle between Coastal and the College of Opticians of British Columbia in January (“Coastal sees lucrative future in online sales of eyeglasses”– issue 1054; January 5-11).