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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA Wells County plastics facility that was recently shuttered by one company is set to resume operations next week under ownership of a different firm.
20/20 Custom Molded Plastics, which is based in the northwestern Ohio town of Holiday City, has acquired the 170,000-square-foot Bluffton facility formerly occupied by Buckhorn Inc. Buckhorn is based in the Cincinnati suburb of Milford, Ohio. It closed the Bluffton plant earlier this year.
20/20 is investing more than $27 million to purchase and equip the Bluffton facility, according to the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
It will start operations Tuesday, 20/20 says.
By the end of this year, 20/20 expects to employ 100 people at its new site, including some of the 86 people who lost their jobs when Buckhorn ceased operations.
The availability of experienced workers was one reason the Bluffton site was attractive, 20/20 said.
“As we add more presses, we hope to expand the employee number to 125 to 150,” 20/20 President Ron Ernsberger said in a prepared statement. “Our plant in Holiday City is a world-class facility and we plan to transform the Bluffton site into the same type of facility.”
The IEDC offered 20/20 up to $810,000 in conditional tax credits and up to $50,000 in training grants based on its job creation plans. These incentives are performance-based, meaning that the company can claim them only after it has hired Hoosier workers. The city of Bluffton will consider additional incentives, the IEDC said.
20/20 uses an injection molding process to make a variety of structural foam products, from pallets and burial vaults to pool panels and doghouses.
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