Colorbok, the scrapbooking and craft company, will move its headquarters out of Dexter to Scio Township this fall, making way for the transformation of its current space on Baker Road into the future home of Dexter Pharmacy.

The company’s 80 employees will start the move to 110 Parkland Plaza - which was previously occupied by Con-way Freight - in November, executive assistant Michelle Principi said.

Principi said the company did not want to move out of the village, but needed about 20,000 square feet to ease crowding and prepare for future growth. The company is in 17,000 square feet, but building owners are planning a redevelopment of the site (see related item on page 6).

“It would have been nice (to stay in Dexter),” Principi said. “At the time, we couldn’t find anything to meet our needs.”

Jay Chavey of Signature Associates represented Colorbok, and said the company liked the Parkland Plaza building because it was essentially ready to occupy, and was relatively close to Dexter.

“This space was pretty much in walk-in condition, and set up perfectly for them,” Chavey said. “They looked all over - Dexter, Ann Arbor, Scio, Pittsfield - but they liked this building because it was ready to go.”

The building, owned by a limited partnership with Mark Griffin and John Sposito as general partners, was represented by Jim Chaconas of Colliers International.

Chaconas said Colorbok signed a five-year lease with a five-year option. The company took the entire building, although another 11,000-square-foot building in the complex was for sale or lease, and a couple of other smaller office condos are also available.

“It was almost a turn-key site,” he said.

Con-way moved out toward the end of 2008.

Principi also said Colorbok was interested in having a standalone building instead of sharing because it would provide more room and flexibility for growth.

“It would be easy to expand if we needed to and not have to worry about sharing or subleasing,” he said.

The company has a warehouse in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. and a quality assurance office in Nanshan, China. A kids department and stationery design office in Tucson, Arizona closed in 2008.

Colorbok’s primary products are scrapbooking material, stationery, craft materials and photo albums.

-Dan Meisler writes about real estate and other topics for Michigan Business Review.