Crane Plastics Manufacturing Ltd. has purchased a 65,000-square-foot plant in Circleville, Ohio, and will relocate some of its custom profile extrusion business there by early summer. The $2.5 million facility is about 25 miles south of Crane's headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.
"We are running out of space at that main plant and this frees up some space," said President Steve Cork.
The Circleville plant will be equipped with 10 new extrusion lines, with plans to add more later.
The facility will operate 24 hours per day, five days per week. Crane will hire about 95 people to work those shifts, Cork said.
The move is part of a plan to split the company into three separate custom extrusion units under the Crane umbrella, he said. The other two units will remain at the Columbus plant.
In October, Crane Plastics Holding Co. became the parent company of six independent businesses that formerly existed as extrusion giant Crane Plastics Co.
Crane reported $148 million in 1998 sales, coming in at No. 21 on Plastics News' ranking of North American pipe, profile and tubing extruders.