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Firms Bring 24 Jobs To North Idaho Plastics, Metal Companies Relocate To Kootenai County

Eric Torbenson Staff Writer

A plastics manufacturer and a metal siding maker announced Wednesday that they will locate facilities in Kootenai County, creating two dozen jobs.

Phillips Plastics Corp. of Phillips, Wis., has leased space in Post Falls’ Riverbend Commerce Park and will design and build injection molding equipment.

FABRAL of Lancaster, Pa., will build a 26,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Thayer Industrial Park in Rathdrum. The company makes metal roofing and siding.

Each company plans to hire 12 people, said Bob Potter of Jobs Plus Inc., Kootenai County’s economic development arm.

The two are the second and third companies to announce plans to locate offices here in two days. Spokane’s Aerostar Aircraft Corp. announced Tuesday its plan to move its airplane maintenance business to the Coeur d’Alene Airport.

Aerostar employs 30 people currently, but plans to start building new airplanes from Coeur d’Alene and could eventually employ about 100 people, Potter said.

Phillips Plastics Corp. will use its Post Falls center to serve customers on the West Coast and in the Inland Northwest. The 32-year-old company had sales of $132 million in its last fiscal year.

Phillips has 11 other offices around the country. Manufacturers of electronics, automotive and medical products buy the company’s designs and products.

While Phillips will work out of leased space initially, the company hopes to build its own facility at some point, Potter said.

FABRAL is a division of GENTEK Building Products Inc., based in Michigan. FABRAL has six other manufacturing sites around the country, producing “a broad range” of metal siding.

The new building will break ground at the corner of Boekel and Meyer roads in Rathdrum.

Potter acknowledged that recruiting new companies has become substantially more difficult. He said Kootenai County would have a slim chance at getting a larger employer such as Harpers Inc., the furniture maker lured here in 1993, because so many places would try to recruit it.

, DataTimes