Casa Grande Arizona Booming with New and Expanding Plant Construction

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). The community of Casa Grande, Arizona is enjoying several major investments in new and expanding industrial plants currently underway. Situated about forty miles south of Phoenix, the relatively small town of only about 19,000 inhabitants is already home to industries such as Hexcel Corp., Wal-Mart Distribution, Myers Bakery and power generation companies, however, one of the city's largest employers, Abbott Laboratories is about to get a little bigger.

Work started about six months ago inside Abbott Laboratories Ross Products Division (Casa Grande, Arizona), a division of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT (Abbott Park, Illinois), to increase the production of the companies Ensure product line and add a new line to package the product in a new reclosable plastic bottle. The company is investing over $20 million in the plant and will add about 90 new jobs once the expansion is completed sometime during April of next year.

Where are these new plastic bottles coming from? A new company entering Casa Grande's portfolio of industrial manufacturing companies comes Graham Packaging Company (York, Pennsylvania). Graham Packaging is currently putting the walls up on a new facility located less than one mile from the Abbott plant that will produce the high-performance bottles for the formula maker. Under a long term leasing agreement with Sunstate (Chandler, Arizona), Sunstate will construct the 100,000 square foot plant and lease the space to Graham Packaging. The company expects to have the roof on the building completed by the end of the month and will install two new high-speed multi-layer extrusion blow-molding production lines to feed the Abbott plant their new containers. This $10 million project is expected to be complete by the mid to late 2nd quarter of 2004 and will bring an additional 30 jobs to the city.

The Ross Products Division of Abbott Laboratories is a leader in providing pediatric nutritionals, adult nutritionals, and related health care products. The Ross Products Division's Similac, Isomil, and PediaSure brands remain among the most-recognized and doctor-recommended brands of pediatric nutritional products.

Graham Packaging is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacturing and sale of customized blow-molded plastic containers for the branded food and beverage, household and personal care, and automotive lubricants markets. The company currently employs approximately 3,900 people at 56 plants throughout North America, Europe and South America.