Toolmaker Underway with $60 Million Expansion in Virginia

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Stihl Incorporated (Virginia Beach, Virginia) has begun construction of a three phase $60 million expansion project (PEC 27001367) at their Virginia Beach plant site.

Stihl is adding an additional 25,000 square feet of production space to its existing 650,000 square foot (sqft) power tool manufacturing plant. The additional production capacity is necessary to handle international demand for products serviced from the Virginia Beach facility. There is also an additional 228,000 square feet of space being added to its Oceana West Corporate Park headquarters.

Henderson Associates (Norfolk, Virginia) is the architect and Compo Construction (Norfolk, Virginia) is the construction manager for the project.

Phase two of the project is currently underway with phase three expected to begin in the summer of 2004. The entire project is expected to be complete by April of 2005. Upon completion of the expansion an additional 200 jobs are expected to be created.

Stihl Incorporated is a one of seven manufacturing facilities in the Stihl Group (Waiblingen, Germany) and began manufacturing in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1974 as Stihl Group's first, and only, United States manufacturing location. Stihl Incorporated employs approximately 1,100 people in a variety of positions from machining/product assembly/molding, manufacturing engineering, sales & marketing, and finance and maintains a 60-acre site with almost a half million sqft of manufacturing and warehouse space. Stihl Incorporated manufactures precision hand tools, chain saws, trimmers, brush cutters, hedge trimmers, blowers, construction tools, augers/drills, accessories, protective apparel/forestry equipment and chain/guide bar replacement parts.