May 28, 2014
Jerry Chavez the new Executive Director of the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation introduced himself to the Plymouth Common Council Tuesday evening prior to introducing a tax abatement request of Pregis Innovative Packaging.
Chavez has only been on the job a few weeks but has 17 years of economic development work starting in Flagstaff, AZ and Great Falls, MT before spending almost 9 years in Minot, ND. He said it was a pleasure to be working for the City of Plymouth. Chavez said his goal is to create a very aggressive and proactive plan for diversity in economic development.
Mr. Chavez then presented the request of tax abatement for Pregis. The company makes all kinds of packaging material including but not limited to bubble wrap in various sizes, paper packaging, mailers, foam sheets, and engineered foam.
Pregis has been in our community since 1986 and currently operates 26 facilities in 10 counties. In the Plymouth facility they employ approximately 195 people. They are planning a $2.3 million expansion that will create 10 new jobs. This expansion is for new equipment that will target e-commerce. Instead of shipping bubble wrap to their customers they are placing machines at their customer’s businesses and they selling them specialist film that will make bubble wrap on location.
Senior Plant Manager, Doug Andrews said the project line has grown 12% each of the last three years. They are now leasing additional facilities on Flora Street and will move some operations to that location.
The Plymouth Common Council passed the resolution declaring the real estate to be within an economic revitalization area. The council will conduct a public hearing at their next meeting on June 9th for the tax abatement request.