Altavista plant set for $12M expansion

By: Bryan Gentry | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: August 29, 2008

A $12 million dollar expansion at a bottle-making plant in Altavista is set to bring at least 10 new jobs to Campbell County.

The Graham Packaging factory, which currently employs 31 people, is putting up a 60,000-square-foot

addition to its current facility and adding machinery to make plastic containers for a new customer in Virginia.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced the expansion in a news release Thursday.

County leaders said the expansion of Graham Packaging is a mark of

successful economic development and a significant project for the county.

“In this day and age when new companies are hard to find, it’s a gratifying thing when companies that are already here are able to expand,” said Stan Goldsmith, county supervisor for Altavista.

The town of Altavista built the existing plant in the late 1990s as a shell building to attract industry.

It became home to an Owens-Illinois plastics factory. Graham Packaging bought Owens-Illinois about four years ago.

Graham Packaging, based in York, Pa., makes molded plastic containers for a number of uses, including laundry detergents and some Pepsi

beverages.

Goldsmith said Graham Packaging supplies bottles to Abbott Laboratories’ Altavista facility.

Mark Leiden, the company’s vice president, said in a news release that sites in several other states were considered.

Campbell County Economic Development Director Mike Davidson said his office and the town of Altavista worked for 16 months to secure the deal.

They explored ways the company could use empty warehouse buildings in Altavista, or build an entire new facility, he said. Finally, expanding the facility emerged as the best choice.

Also, “both Campbell County and the town of Altavista have provided industrial incentive grants,” Davidson said.

He would not release the amount of those grants because they need a vote in public meetings of the Town Council and Board of Supervisors, he said. Those votes will come in September.

Davidson’s office and town officials also sought out other grants for the company, securing $50,000 from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission.

Don Sarvey, spokesman for Graham Packaging, said the company made its final decision to expand in Altavista around July 1.

The expansion could add 10 to 12 full-time jobs, he said. The size of the plant will double, and should be complete by March, he said.

It will also buy millions of dollars worth of equipment and machinery needed to make the new plastic product.

Davidson said the county anticipates $80,000 per year in property tax revenue from the equipment.

Davidson said the project is significant for the county’s economy, especially now, when unemployment has risen and the Archer Creek Foundry in the county recently laid off 38 workers.

“For 10 employees in today’s economy, this is a good to mid-sized project, and one that we are very proud of,” he said.