A Fargo hot tub and swimming pool business has purchased a local recreation store and is expanding both under one roof on Main Avenue.
Tubs of Fun owner Troy Derheim bought the Family Recreation Store, which was in business at 2590 Main Ave. for 14 years.
The combined business employs 18 people and will offer merchandise ranging from hot tubs and commercial-size swimming pools to dart boards, pin ball machines, poker, pool, air hockey and ping pong tables.
Another business component will be a learning center to teach safety measures dealing with swimming pool and spa care and chemicals, Derheim said. Installation and services are available on the products it sells.
"We are a general contractor. We do a complete design and installation of in-ground pools," he said.
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Derheim started Tubs of Fun at 2714 Main Ave. in 1991 while enrolled as a construction management and engineering student at North Dakota State University.
"I was hanging around with a couple of buddies one night and wanted to rent a hot tub," he said. "No one was really into renting hot tubs."
He purchased a hot tub and began renting it out. "I started with a '75 Monte Carlo, a snowmobile trailer and a hot tub. I never planned on having a retail business - ever," he said.
After starting a customer services line of products, the venture grew into a full-fledged retail business and Derheim, an NDSU senior, had to quit school.
About four years ago he returned to school to earn a business management degree from the University of Mary. "I figured I better go back and learn what I had fallen into," he said.
A construction project expected to be completed Aug. 1 will more than double the size of Tubs of Fun from 2,500 square feet to 5,500 square feet, he said.
The business can be reached at (701) 234-0705 or by logging on to Web site tubsoffun.com.
Readers can reach Forum Business Editor Craig McEwen at (701) 241-5502
