Gates Corporation, which has been a mainstay of Allen County industry for 40 years, has announced a major expansion of their Iola facility.
Thrive congratulates and thanks the Gates Rubber Company and The Blackstone Group for its decision to make a massive investment in Allen County by expanding the Gates-Iola facility. This project involves a 82,000 square foot expansion where a state-of-the-art high pressure rotary drill hose will be produced; the project is valued at approximately $24 million, with 25-30 new jobs.
According to their Press Release:
Gates Corporation Announces Expansion of Iola, Kansas Facility
DENVER, Colo. (February 2, 2015) – Gates Corporation, a global diversified manufacturer of industrial and automotive products, announced today that it will expand its Iola, Kansas manufacturing facility to accommodate its new line of oil & gas hose products. The 82,000 square foot expansion will increase the size of the company’s existing plant that manufactures high-quality hydraulic and other industrial hose products to over 500,000 square feet. Construction is expected to begin in the summer of 2015 and will take approximately 18 months to complete including equipment installation, and testing. “We are very excited about this expansion of our Iola manufacturing facility,” said Scott Strycker, Gates Iola plant manager. Ken Friedman, President Americas Region for Gates added “Selecting Iola as the site for this new facility speaks to the quality of the people and products manufactured out of the Iola plant.”
In operation since 1975, the Gates Iola plant currently employs over 650 people in its manufacturing and distribution operations and is currently accepting applications for employment.
For more information about this announcement, please contact Scott Day at 620-365-4111.
Allen County residents can be proud of the partnership between Thrive, our local governments and the state of Kansas that helped Iola beat out the competition to win this huge economic development project. 2015 is looking good for Allen County!
