Ameriform Inc. is expanding thermoforming capacity and warehouse and assembly space in Muskegon and Norton Shores, Mich.
The company qualifies for a 12-year tax abatement on the $1.4 million project, said Norton Shores City Administrator Mark Meyers.
“This is a significant operation,” Meyers said in a phone interview. The expansion is one of four underway in the area's industrial base. About 150 new jobs are slated for the area, of which 60 jobs would be accounted for by Ameriform.
Meyers said Ameriform is the biggest plastics business in the region. Furniture manufacturing and GE Aviation's jet engine components operations are other major employers.
Ameriform produces Sun Dolphin kayaks and other watercraft and sporting goods. Warehousing space will be relocated into the new building, freeing up room for thermoforming machinery in an existing facility in Muskegon. The new building in Norton Shores should be ready for occupancy in early 2017.
The expansion is the second for Ameriform in less than two years. In 2015 it added two thermoforming lines in Muskegon as part of a $7.5-million expansion of its thermoforming, rotational molding and extrusion operations.