PIC's first tenant prepares to expand

Buckhorn, a plastic containers and packing materials manufacturer, is expanding its 220,000-square-foot facility. The company opened as Allibert Contico 13 years ago in the northeast Springfield center.

Ross Allen, plant manager for the Ohio-based company’s Springfield facility, said the 102,000-square-foot, $1.4 million addition will allow Buckhorn to expand its warehouse and assembly space for manufacturing equipment.

“We’re adding molding equipment and injection and structural foam equipment, and that requires us to add additional space to warehouse the product that we inventory,” Allen said, noting that about 100,000 square feet of the existing facility is used for inventory.

Buckhorn, which is owned by publicly traded Myers Industries (NYSE: MYE), employs about 170 at the facility. Allen said the additional equipment and space would mean hiring another 20 employees.

Myers Industries purchased Allibert Contico in 1999 – then a joint venture between French company Allibert Equipement and St. Louis-based Contico International.

Allibert Contico spent $5.1 million to build its original facility in PIC, according to a 1994 Springfield building permit, and the current work is the company’s first major expansion since the building opened in fall of that year. Strafford-based Storee Construction is the general contractor for the project, which should be completed in November.

Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce President Jim Anderson, one of those involved in bringing the company to the city, said landing that first tenant for the center was key.

“It validated our contention that we needed this master-planned industrial park for this community,” Anderson said. “We were losing projects to our competitor communities because they were more ready for economic development.”

Geographic perks

Buckhorn’s Springfield location ships reusable plastic containers to lawn and garden companies on the West Coast, in Florida and the western Great Lakes region.

The PIC facility, Allen said, offers the company specific advantages.

“Logistically, the central location to our customers as far as trafficking west, north and east, offers a good base of operations,” he said.

That central location is also part of the reason that other companies also have expanded their PIC facilities or have plans to do so in the near future.

Northstar Battery, which spent $36 million to build its PIC site in 2000 and added 60,000 square feet in 2005, is adding another 52,000 square feet, according to Northstar Vice President of Operations Joel Gibson.

Gibson said the $3 million expansion to the 200,000-square-foot facility will allow for additional equipment and should be operational in early 2008.

Polar Tank Trailer also expanded its operations earlier this year; the $1 million project, which added 25,000 square feet to the center’s 80,000-square-foot facility, was completed in February.

Prime location

Chamber Economic Development Director Greg Williams said that from conversations he has had with other PIC tenants, geography plays a key role in the center’s attractiveness.

“You couldn’t ask for a more strategic location than Springfield,” Williams said, noting the city’s equidistance from the coasts. “We have a tremendous network of transportation, with a major east-west arterial in Interstate 44, the main line of the Burlington Northern railroad and a horribly competitive trucking business. It’s easy to get material moved into this area for production and get product moved out to the major centers of enterprise.”

But the significance of the expansion plans for Buckhorn, the inaugural tenant, is not lost on Williams.

“It tells us is that there’s been a tremendous amount of sustainability in this business,” Williams said. “For them to solidify their investment and their commitment to the community, that’s good news for us and for the people and families associated with Buckhorn’s operations in Springfield.”

It’s also good news for Springfield’s economy – the $7 million in public investment into infrastructure for the park has turned into more than $200 million in business investment, and businesses in the park employ 2,400.

Just Buckhorn

Allibert Contico was the first tenant in Springfield’s Partnership Industrial Center when it opened in 1994. The company was a joint venture between St. Louis-based Contico International and French company Allibert Equipement.

Myers Industries Inc., a publicly traded company (NYSE: MYE) based in Akron, Ohio, purchased Allibert, and the joint venture in Springfield, in 1999. The following year, the Springfield facility was renamed AC Buckhorn, a combination of its former name and Buckhorn Inc., another plastics company Myers acquired in 1997.

In the time since the purchase, Myers has gradually dropped the “AC” from the company’s name, now calling the company just Buckhorn.