Hanson Brick Plans to Construct 23rd North American Brick Manufacturing Plant

---

Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Hanson Brick (Charlotte, North Carolina), a subsidiary of Hanson plc (London, England), is proceeding with plans to construct a new brick manufacturing plant in the U.S. The "state of the art" plant will be the company's twenty third manufacturing plant in North America (PEC 01009591). Hanson has showed steady growth in North America since it began a series of acquisitions and expansions, starting with Jannock Limited's brick operations in 1999. See archived IIR Industry Alert: Hanson Brick Expands North American Presence for details.

The new plant is proposed to be constructed on an existing 263-acre property in Mineral Wells, Texas (Plant 1034817) and will be the company's second plant at the site. The company is awaiting corporate approval and finalization of local permitting and zoning issues to proceed.

The project will be bid in three major pieces:

1) Site work, building shells, general lighting, and utilities
2) Major equipment, equipment foundations, and power distribution
3) Pollution control system

Hanson Brick, with regional offices in Fort Worth, Texas is negotiating with D/B Constructors (Fort Worth) to perform site work, building shells, general lighting, and utilities, but no decision had been made at press time.

The company is also entertaining bids from three major equipment suppliers to supply the main brick making equipment, which is fairly specialized. Selection of contractors will be made pending corporate approval late this year, and the company hopes to begin construction in late January of 2004.

The main plant will include 198,000 square feet of production space in addition to the 175,000 square feet existing plant. Production capacity at the site will increase up to 180 million bricks per year when the new plant is completed in three years. The new plant is expected to add about 40 new jobs. Total installed value of the new plant will approach $40 million.

Last year, Hanson Brick America opened a new division headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. In May of 2003, Hanson opened a new brick manufacturing plant in Monroe, North Carolina (PEC 15001257).