In its biggest expansion since buying the asphalt emulsions business from Vulcan Materials in 2005, Hudson Materials is planning to build a $10 million plant in Chattanooga's Centre South Riverport Industrial Park to expand its production and staff.
The Chattanooga-based asphalt producer and distributor, which is a sister company to the 63-year-old Hudson Construction Co., is buying more than 13 acres in the riverport for $718,500, or nearly $55,000 an acre. Hudson will build its new plant on the last undeveloped site in the industrial park that Hamilton County first began developing more than four decades ago.
"We've been looking for a site with rail access that would allow us to expand and grow, and this offers us not only rail connections but a central location for distribution," Garrett Guiles, the president of Hudson Materials, said in a telephone interview Monday."This will allow us to have our own facility and to grow our market."
The $1 trillion infrastructure spending package approved by Congress in November is expected to boost both highway and road building activity and boost demand for Hudson's products, Guiles said.
The Hamilton County Commission approved the land sale last week, and Guiles said he hopes to complete due diligence to acquire the site this spring and begin construction to allow the first phase of production to begin next year. Once the new plant is built, Guiles said Hudson Materials will relocate the existing asphalt emulsion facility it now leases from Vulcan Materials next to Vulcan's rock quarry on Shallowford Road near the Chattanooga airport.
Guiles said the new facility and other business expansions should add about 15 more jobs for the company in Chattanooga. Hudson Materials operates a similar asphalt emulsions plant in Knoxville.
Photo by Dave Flessner / Hudson Materials is planning to buy this 13.08-acre site next to Silvey Metalworks on Riverport Road, seen on Monday.The two Hudson Materials' plants produce a variety of anionic and cationic emulsion products used in applications by state and local road building agencies and companies within about a 150-mile radius of Chattanooga, Guiles said, adding that the new site will also house the company's main office for Hudson materials.
The sale of the last undeveloped lot in the riverport is adjacent to Silvey Metalworks on Riverport Road, according to Hamilton County's director of real property, Lynn Mansfield.
The riverport was developed on the site of the former Crutchfield farm off Amnicola Highway and was opened in the 1980s during the administration of then Hamilton County Executive Dalton Roberts. The riverfront park is the only one of the county's seven industrial parks that offers both barge and rail access and has helped attract more than $200 million of investments and over 325 direct jobs, in addition to hundreds of other support jobs, officials say.
Tenants in the Riverport include NA Industries Inc., LJT Tennessee, Hamilton Plastics, Sofix Corporation, Westinghouse and Confluent and will soon include Southern Champion Tray.
While the riverport is full, the county still has sites in the Enterprise South Industrial Park in Tyner, which has helped attract such corporate giants as Volkswagen, Amazon and Gestamp. In December, Hamilton County spent $16 million to buy the 2,179-acre McDonald's farm in Sale Creek to develop a new industrial park for future development.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340. Follow him on Twitter @dflessner1.
Photo by Dave Flessner / The Vulcan Materials rock quarry on Shallowford Road in Chattanooga, seen here on Monday, sold off its asphalt emulsions plant to Hudson Materials in 2005. Hudson Materials has leased the facility from Vulcan for over 16 years but is now planning to build a bigger plant in the Hamilton County Centre South Riverport Industrial Park.