Plastics company plans 200 jobs, $34M investment in Pittsylvania

Manufacturing plant will be on former site of Burlington Industries in town of Hurt

Published May 8, 2020 by Kate Andrews

An Ohio-based plastics company is planning to invest $34 million in a new plant in Pittsylvania County, a project expected to bring 200 manufacturing jobs to the region over the next four years, local officials announced Friday.

The 250,000-square-foot plant will be built on the former site of Burlington Industries in the Southern Virginia Multimodal Park in the town of Hurt. RAGE Plastics, a family-owned company headquartered in Hilliard, Ohio, also has a facility in Campbell County, which it expects to expand as part of its new investment. The company creates injection-molded plastic products for multiple industries: medical, automotive, industrial, electrical products, as well as bottles and other packaging.

Under the Staunton River Plastics LLC entity, the company will manufacture packaging for hygiene products at the facility, officials announced.

“We extend a warm Southern Virginia welcome to this company,” said Sherman M. Saunders, chairman of the Staunton River Regional Industrial Facility Authority, a group that includes representatives from Pittsylvania County, Danville and the town of Hurt. The authority, which promotes commercial and industrial development at the park, unanimously approved a local performance agreement Friday afternoon before the announcement.

The industrial park was built on 800 acres where the former Klopman textile manufacturing plant once stood; Burlington Industries bought the mills in the 1950s, employing more than 1,000 people at its height. In December 2002, the plant closed its doors, a year after Burlington filed for bankruptcy. In 2016, Pittsylvania County, Samet Corp. and Hurt Partners LLC announced a partnership to build the park, giving tenants access to rail and highway transportation, as well as water and wastewater infrastructure. The authority was formed in 2018 to market the park, although the town of Altavista dropped out of the group in late 2019.

“Hurt’s never seen this,” said Tim W. Dudley, vice chairman of the authority and the Staunton River District member of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors. “We’re going to be so proud of this.”

Gov. Ralph Northam approved a $500,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Pittsylvania County with the project, as well as a performance-based grant of $300,000 from the Virginia Investment Performance (VIP) program, an incentive that encourages capital investment by existing Virginia companies. The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission approved $135,000 in Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds for the project.

The company also is eligible to receive rail access funding from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, as well as benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program.