Drake Plastics Ltd. Co. broke ground Nov. 3 on a 140,000-square-foot headquarters plant that will allow it to consolidate its operations from seven nearby buildings.
The stock shapes extruder and injection molder is investing $26 million to double its current production space. The facility is being built on a 40-acre campus in Cypress, Texas, near Houston, said Cameron Yonts, a company spokesman, by phone.
Drake President Steven Quance said in a statement that the area is "where it all began." He noted Drake has been in Greater Houston more than 25 years.
With the new space will come new equipment.
The company currently operates two 35-ton and three 55-ton injection molding machines, as well as one 200- and one 300-ton machine, Yonts said. All the presses are fully electric Toyos.
"We expect to land up to seven new machines in the new building, with the first being a 600-ton Toyo," Yonts added. That machine should arrive in about 18 months, which is when the company anticipates launching the facility.
Drake plans to lease out the existing buildings. The company has grown so quickly in recent years, it had to keep expanding into new spaces, Yonts said. Now it wants to bring them all together.
Drake, which specializes in ultrahigh-performance polymers, started out extruding machinable stock shapes made from glass-reinforced Torlon polyamide-imide to support the Javelin anti-tank weapon program.
Since then, it has added a variety of performance polymers to its offerings, including polyetherether ketone, polyaryletherketone and polyphenylene sulfide.
The company's markets include automotive, military/defense, aerospace and electronics/electrical.