INDIANA SPOTLIGHT
Northeast by Northwest
The overall region has also implemented a new information technology tax abatement program, which was immediately put into use in November 2004 by Fort Wayne Metals Research Products Corp. for a $1.2-million upgrade that will add four slots to the company's 230-person payroll. The medical wire company also recently purchased a 60,000-sq.-ft. (5,574-sq.-m.) building to bring its entire campus to around 250,000 sq. ft. (23,225 sq. m.).
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Columbia City is seeing more investment than Autoliv's, as Fort Wayne-based mini-mill company Steel Dynamics is going forward with a $17-million rail welding project.Not far from medical product capital Warsaw, a healthy product of another kind will see further expansion. Ready Pac Inc. hopes to add at least 100 jobs in the next two years at its plant in Plymouth, where 249 are currently employed. The plant opened in September 2002.
Across the northern tier of the state, in the region associated with steel, plumbing technology manufacturer Geberit Manufacturing is investing $12.9 million in a 121-job expansion that will see around $1 million in state and local incentives. Headquartered just an hour and a half away in Des Plaines, Ill., Geberit employs more than 500 in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Alabama. Parent corporation The Geberit Group, based in Jona, Switzerland, purchased the Des Plaines-based Chicago Faucet Co. from Masco Corp. in 2002.
In nearby LaPorte, where furniture company American Signature is already building a 156-worker distribution center, American Licorice Co. is bringing a product line across the state line from Illinois that brings with it 150 jobs in 2005 and a possible 230 jobs by 2007. The candy company will occupy a building left vacant by Whirlpool in 2002.
