A major Fayetteville employer is expanding.
This is what Packaging Specialties sounds like every day. Printed film products are produced here at the facility on Armstrong Road in south Fayetteville. This is what it sounded like for a bit late yesterday morning. Several dozen people were at Packaging Specialties to learn about the company's major expansion from CEO Nick Guglielmi.
"Because over the next five years, we're spending $24 million on this expansion. And probably before that five years is up, we're going to add a little bit over 100 more jobs in Fayetteville with Fayetteville people."
The company is headquartered in Fayetteville and has been in operation for more than 50 years. The expansion will formally connect two existing buildings on the company's campus, the current home for Packaging Specialties and the nearby building used for the company's Pacmac division.
Guglielmi says the company was examining where to expand next, and he says with the aid of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce and the city of Fayetteville, the decision was made to expand at the home site. He says a conversation with Fayetteville Mayor Molly Rawn was part of that process.
"Mayor Rawn got up and it was our first time meeting her and listening to what was happening, and she made a comment that we had the most beautiful trails. We have a beautiful area, we have all this stuff, but we have got to work with the manufacturing industries in Fayetteville. We are now a believer — what they've done from that office with Arkansas Economic Development, with the Chamber of Commerce. This is why we chose to stay here and not move to other facilities."
Mayor Rawn says she's pleased the expansion is happening in her city and that the announcement dovetails with a city priority: affordable housing. The mayor says it does take infrastructure and planning to ease a housing crisis, but it also requires good-paying jobs.
The president and CEO of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, Jennifer Irwin, says it's not a coincidence Packaging Specialties picked its home base for its expansion.
"Companies don't grow in places where the talent isn't there, and Fayetteville continues to prove that we have skilled, dedicated and reliable workforces."
The final expansion will bring the company's Fayetteville campus to about 250,000 square feet of manufacturing facility. That's an increase between 22,000 and 28,000 square feet.
Clint O’Neal, the executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, says the cooperation between state and city is a positive example for all Arkansas.
"Capital goes where capital is welcome, and economic development thrives where companies are welcome. And it's great to hear these remarks this morning about Packaging Specialties, knowing that they are welcome in Fayetteville. They are welcome in Arkansas. They are continuing to be successful.
"And so we're with you here today. We're excited to celebrate this announcement for the next 50 years. We'll be with you rolling out great workforce development programs, helping the folks in Arkansas, the folks in Fayetteville, to have good, meaningful jobs like the ones that you're creating here."
Packaging Specialties provides printed films to more than 20 food and non-food industries, and according to the company, the completed expansion will mean about 100 new jobs, adding to the current 254 people already employed at the Fayetteville location.
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