A 16-foot grizzly bear sculpture that spent 14 years in Pennsylvania has returned home to Springfield.

Grizzly Industrial installed the sculpture Monday afternoon outside the main entrance of its facility at the intersection of Battlefield Road and Kansas Expressway. The Bellingham, Washington-based retailer of woodworking and metalworking equipment commissioned the piece from Springfield companies near the turn of the millennium, and shipped the sculpture to Muncy, Pennsylvania, in Oct. 2001 to stand outside a newly-built distribution center there.

The Pennsylvania facility closed last fall, so the bear was brought to Springfield, where it sat in the back of a warehouse until Monday.

"Since the bear was manufactured here and pretty much born here, we're excited to have it come back," Debbie Eisner, general manager of Grizzly Industrial's Springfield location, said Monday.

According to a 2001 News-Leader story chronicling the bear's move east, the sculpture weighs about a ton. Starting from sketches and an 18-inch scale model, the full-sized figure was fashioned in 60 days from a steel frame surrounded by foam. Carved while lying down using grinders, sanders and even chain saws, the one-of-a-kind piece was then slathered with a 1-inch thick polyurethane hardcoat to protect it.

The bear was designed by Ozark design firm Touché Design Group, which at the time was located in Springfield and went by the name Touché Designs. Touché founder Jeanne Waters-Hill told the News-Leader Monday that she believed the actual fabrication was done by Garage Graphics, a Springfield-based company that now goes by the name Elemoose.

While the bear itself is 16 feet tall, that figure becomes 22 feet tall when the pedestal beneath it is counted.

That appears to dwarf the city's two other bear sculptures, both of which are on the Missouri State University campus, where the carnivore is the chosen mascot. The bronze bear in front of Plaster Student Union, in place since 1999, is 14 feet tall, according to a 2011 alumni magazine feature. The more intimidating bear by the university's football stadium stands 7 feet, according to the sculptor's website.

Grizzly founder Shiraz Balolia told the News-Leader in a 2001 that the bear was something unusual, meant to serve as a visual reminder of the name brand.

"It's a very ferocious and respected animal in the wild — it's a name you don't forget," Balolia said at the time.

"Everything about it's just huge," Mike Hill, then co-owner of Touché Designs, said in 2001.

The project was said to cost $50,000, although it's not clear if moving expenses were part of that figure.

In 2001, as the bear set off for Muncy, which is near the city of Williamsport, Balolia said a bear sculpture would eventually be added in Springfield, as well. But a second sculpture was never commissioned, Eisner said Monday.

In a statement provided to the Williamsport Sun-Gazette in September, Balolia explained the decision to close the Pennsylvania facility: "With continued explosive growth in our Internet business, consolidation of our distribution centers is essential to keeping up with the trends in the economy. We have been in the Williamsport area since 1987, and have seen our expenses such as trucking for containers quadruple over the years. Being far from a metropolis adds many expenses that are no longer feasible for a remote location."

The closure of the Muncy facility leaves Grizzly with two bases of operations, in Springfield and Bellingham, Washington. Following a recent expansion, the Springfield facility — established in 1999 — covers almost 500,000 square feet, Eisner said Monday; the company has 117 local employees.

"It's going to be a show-stopper out there, especially at that intersection," Eisner said.