Massachusetts Dominates New England Region for New Plant Start-Ups in Second Half of 2007

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The New England region plans for 23 new plants to begin operation in the second half of 2007. According to a recent analysis of Industrial Info’s Industrial Manufacturing Industry Coverage, Massachusetts remains the region’s leader for new plants, having garnered 10 of the planned facilities, or 43% of the total.

Click on the image at right to view a chart showing the number of new plants and employees by state for the New England Region.

New England as a whole has gained 91 percent of new plants for the last half of 2007, compared with the period last year, when 12 facilities opened. The combined total investment value (TIV) of projects sourced from this year’s plants, both for original construction costs and planned future projects, is $283 million, which results in average site TIV of $12.3 million.

The region, which also includes Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, could see the addition of nearly 1,200 jobs after the ”second-half” plants are fully operational. The new facilities will be used for a variety of purposes, including the Algonquin Gas Transmission Company’s (Cromwell, Connecticut) new compressor station in Cheshire, Connecticut, and the Cutone Mushroom Company’s (Chelsea, Massachusetts) growing and processing operation in Barre, Massachusetts. Long a favorite region for biotech investment (reference: 2007 Pharmaceutical-Biotech Industry Forecast), Genzyme (Cambridge, Massachusetts) is building an R&D facility in Framingham, Massachusetts, which should be complete by year’s end.

The new plant activity will add to the region’s existing 1,600 operational plants as found in Industrial Info Resources’ New England Online Plant Directory. The existing plants provide employment for 360,000 people. With all of the major industrial groups represented in the region, the majority of existing operational plants are claimed by the Industrial Manufacturing sector, which employs more than 200,000 in nearly 600 plants. A distant second place falls to the Food and Beverage Industry, with roughly 200 facilities employing nearly 34,000. The rest of the operational sites are distributed among other groups, including the Pharmaceutical-Biotech Industry with almost 150 sites employing more than 50,000 people. The Pulp and Paper Industry is on board with more than 180 facilities and 27,000 jobs.

The Food and Beverage Industry claims the most plants for the region in the last half of the year, with eight sites forecast to go online. The Industrial Manufacturing sector is a close second with seven plants, and Pharmaceutical-Biotech claims third with. The remaining facilities are sourced from Power (1), Oil & Gas Transmission (1), O&G Production (1) and Alternative Fuels (1).

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