Bowdeya Tweh, Times of Northwest Indiana
bowdeya.tweh@nwi.com
A New Jersey-based business is expected to open a rail car facility in Starke County next year, the business and the Starke County Development Foundation said Tuesday.
Reagent Chemical and Research Inc. will open a rail car facility in a Knox industrial park in summer 2010. The opening is expected to create about 31 jobs over time and $5 million in new investments, officials said in a news release.
The county was in competition with sites in Texas, Louisiana and West Virginia.
Reagent Vice President Brian Skeuse said the company already moved its White Flyer Division to Knox in 2005 after city and county efforts to construct a lead rail track through the industrial park in 2004. To help attract the rail car facility, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. granted funds to Reagent.
City and county officials applauded the move.
"Reagent's decision to locate its new rail car facility in Starke County not only demonstrates Starke County's strategic location but Reagent's confidence in Starke County and its work force," said Charles Weaver, Starke County Development Foundation Director, in the news release.
The company plans to build two buildings totaling 36,500 square feet and build 6,155 new feet of rail on site. The city will tap its revolving loan fund for economic development to add nearly 1,000 feet of new rail onto lead track it owns.
At the new facility, the company will equip new rail tank cars for use and maintain and repair its existing fleet of rail cars at the site, the news release said. The rail cars will be used to transport hydrochloric acid between Reagent's distribution facilities outside of Indiana and its customers in sectors including food processing, energy, and steel.
The business, based about 52 miles outside of Newark, N.J, said it is the largest private owner of rubber-lined rail cars. The White Flyer division produces and markets clay targets.