Baytees moving to new location in Indian River

INDIAN RIVER — Local custom branding business, Baytees, is moving from its current location at 1601 Standish Ave. in Petoskey, to 6472 S. Straits Hwy. 

Co-owners and married couple Joe and Julie Beattie are the team behind Baytees. They have rented space in the Petoskey location since 2017 and recently closed on a building of their own, where they will not only work, but also live.

“We set an appointment and took a look at (the building) with the Realtor that was selling it. And we said, ‘you know, it'd be really cool if we could live here too.’ And he's like, ‘Well, I don't see why that would be a problem,’” Joe said. “So we went in front of the zoning board and got zoning approval to occupy and run a business out of the same unit and so that just made total financial sense for us.”

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The Beatties are now renting out their home in Petoskey while they transition into the new space. They are planning to have all of their equipment moved in the first couple weeks of June.

This new building is the next step in the gradual expansion of Baytees. Having started out with a printing machine in their bedroom, to moving into one small office at the Standish Avenue location and eventually expanding into other rooms of the building, the Beatties said owning a building is the logical next phase.

Even with more space and the ability to expand, the Beatties don’t plan to take on any employees. 

“We want to stay just the two of us,” Julie said.

“Julie and I have built this business around just us working. So our expansion is just going to be able to reach a bigger broader market being so close to (I-)75 and being closer over that way,” Joe said. 

“There's quite a few businesses that do this in town and there's enough business for all of us, but we would like to service more rural communities and give other communities more opportunities to have this type of technology.”

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The Beatties said most of Baytees' current customers are planning to stick with the company despite the new location being further away.

“We deal with a lot of locals,” Joe said. “So, as we transition to Indian River, we found that a lot of our customers have relations over there, such as, they live there or they have a summer house there or they have employees that live there that drive.”

Julie added “We told people we will make it work to be able to meet up with everybody who can't make it over there to do a pickup because our family is still over here, so we'll be over here."

Contact reporter Tess Ware at tware@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @Tess_Petoskey