After owning the property for more than 10 years, Poly-America Inc. is going ahead with plans to open a large film extrusion plant in Henderson.
The film and bag producer will open a 380,000-square-foot plant in an industrial area near Las Vegas by the end of the year, said Jeff Leake, economic development officer for the city of Henderson. Poly-America will spend about $63 million and employ about 100 people when it opens, Leake said.
The company, based in Grand Prairie, Texas, bought the Nevada site in 1994 with plans to start construction in 2001. However, complaints by citizens in the Mission Hills area led Henderson City Council to delay approval of the Poly-America project.
Residents were concerned that building heights would detract from the view and that an extrusion company would undermine the value of the upper-end neighborhood.
Poly-America agreed to minimize the facility's height, lower a segment of the surrounding silos into the ground to make them less noticeable and add a walking and bicycle path in its landscaping scheme.
By the time the arrangements were made and the council gave approval, tax incentives with the city and state had expired. Poly-America applied again and received a total of $2.8 million in an incentive package, used to abate sales and property taxes and for worker training.
The company plans to distribute products from the plant across the West, using a railroad hub at the facility, Leake said. Poly-America plans eventually to employ 400 at the plant, which sits on 45 acres of land.
Poly-America officials did not return calls about the project. George Hall, the company's vice president of manufacturing, had worked out the agreement with the city to build the facility.
The company claims to be the world's largest maker of polyethylene construction film and also produces trash bags, stretch and shrink film and geomembrane liners.
Poly-America also operates extrusion plants in Grand Prairie and Cottage Grove, Minn., and has a material reprocessing center in Mont Belvieu, Texas.