For 30 years, Warrior Tractor has been a staple in the Athens community, but it will soon pull up stakes for a new location off Interstate 565.

The industrial equipment dealer is building a 50,000-square-foot facility off the Greenbrier Road exit in Limestone County. Warrior Tractor is currently located at 1911 U.S. 31, Athens, right across from the Limestone Farmers Co-op.

Bill Mitchell, general manager of Warrior Tractor in Athens, said he hopes the new store will be open by July.

“Athens is our home, and this is where most of our employees live,” he said. “We wanted to stay in Athens, but it just didn’t work out. We’re still going to be good neighbors and help the community grow.”

The Athens store will retain between 28 to 32 employees, but Mitchell hopes to increase that number by 10 percent over the next year.

The store is looking for a way to continue working with Athens Utilities, which uses Warrior Tractor for parts and service. He said Athens Utilities employees had gotten accustomed to driving their commercial tractors down U.S. 31 to the shop for repair.

“We’re going to try to find a way to make it easy for them (to get service),” Mitchell said.

Warrior Tractor’s new location in Huntsville-annexed Limestone County is one of two new locations the Tuscaloosa-based company is building in Alabama. The other is in Graysville, just northwest of Birmingham. The Athens location serves North Alabama counties and a couple of counties in southern Tennessee.

Warrior Tractor is a full-line John Deere dealer and also offers parts and service. Mitchell said the new facility would allow him to keep more tractors and backhoes on hand but also increase the space needed to repair equipment. The Athens store can only display 25 to 30 pieces of equipment.

“We’ll be on 20 acres there as opposed to the 6.7 acres we have now,” he said.

Along with the additional space Warrior Tractor will have at its new location, it will be close to other businesses that sell and rent large industrial equipment. Cowin Equipment Co. is just a stone’s throw away on Alabama 20.

“We feel like we’re blessed with a fine piece of property,” Mitchell said. “We’re doing all we can in our current facility, but we’ve just outgrown it.”