Uponor, a multinational maker of plumbing, heating and cooling systems, is expanding its Twin Cities manufacturing operations in an $18 million project at the company's North American headquarters in Apple Valley.
Renovating and expanding an existing building will add 88,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space to the campus of Uponor, Apple Valley's largest employer.
The additional space and manufacturing equipment the company plans to buy will help Uponor meet growing demand projected for Uponor's cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) tubing products in commercial and residential markets, said Bill Gray, president of Uponor North America.
The expansion will lead to the addition of "in the neighborhood of 100 new jobs" in the Twin Cities metro area over next two or three years, Gray said in an interview. The company, which has a distribution center and resin-processing center in Lakeville, has hired more than 130 employees over the past three years and has close to 500 in the Twin Cities. Parent company Uponor Group, headquartered in Finland, has 4,000 employees worldwide.
State, city incentives
To assist Uponor with the expansion, the state Department of Employment and Economic Development has made up to $1.5 million available through the Minnesota Investment Fund and the Job Creation Fund. The company also has requested a deferred loan of $800,000 from the Apple Valley Economic Development Authority and would receive $1.1 million over a nine-year period through a tax increment financing district. The City Council will conduct public hearings on the proposed incentives April 9.
Uponor studied available financial incentives and the logistics of expanding locally or in another state or country before deciding on Apple Valley, where it's had offices for 25 years, Gray said. Work on the expansion is to begin this spring and be complete by Dec. 1.
Gray said the decision to stay in Apple Valley took into account the available financial incentives, the proximity of the company's headquarters, and a "critical mass" of customers, suppliers and employees in the Twin Cities.
"It was really an all-in, all-things-considered decision," Gray said. "Incentives are always important because they change the return-on-investment formula. The important thing to remember is that they are only based on delivery of pre-agreed milestones" including the number of jobs the expansion creates.