Coca-Cola Co. PET blow molder Southeastern Container Inc. of Enka, N.C., will spend $20 million to build a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Beloit, Wis.
The facility will be the firm's 10th blow molding site in the United States. The Greater Beloit Economic Development Corp. and the City of Beloit announced the project on May 31. According to a GBEDC news release, the facility will be designed to accommodate future expansion and could grow to 700,000 square feet. Initially, it will house three blow molding lines and employ 60.
Southeastern Container Chief Executive Officer Tom Francis, reached by telephone June 1, would not comment beyond GBEDC's news release.
Southeastern spent several months looking for a site, GBEDC said in its release. The Beloit City Council planned to consider June 5 a development agreement under which the city has offered to use tax incremental financing for construction of a new access road to accommodate the project. Southeastern will receive a $50,000 grant for employment training.
Southeastern Container opened its last blow molding site in Kings Mountain, N.C., at the beginning of 2005. In that project, the company invested $26 million in injection stretch blow molding equipment.
The company is owned by a consortium of Coca-Cola bottling franchises. In Plastics News' 2005 ranking of North American blow molders, the company had an estimated $440 million in blow molding sales. It also operates plants in Winchester, Va.; New Hackensack, N.Y.; Orlando, Fla.; Bowling Green, Ohio; Cleveland, Tenn.; Effingham, Ill.; and Hudson, N.H.