Cambrex addition will bring benefits to company, community

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A $27 million expansion at a local industry will increase both the quantity and the variety of products able to be produced and will add an estimated 29 fairly high-paying jobs.

Cambrex announced in August that it will be building a 4,500-square-foot addition to its plant in Charles City’s southwest industrial park.

Joe Nettleton, Charles City site director and vice president of operations for Cambrex, told the Press Thursday the expansion is important to the company.

“It will allow us to bid on some projects we haven’t been able to before,” Nettleton said.

The addition of 2,200 gallons of reactor capacity will enable the local plant to produce higher quantities of potent and highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), as well as producing different combinations, he said.

Nettleton explained what Cambrex does in Charles City as making the active ingredients that are used in a variety of medications.

Cambrex sells the active ingredient to formulation companies — or to companies that sell to formulation companies — where the ingredients are incorporated into the pills, capsules and solutions that consumers are familiar with.

The 29 jobs have an estimated starting salary beginning at $22 an hour and ranging up to more than twice that. They will be added to a total company work force of almost 360 people in Charles City.

Nettleton said the company will hire some of those new people from the area, but the highly skilled jobs that require advanced degrees will be recruited globally, meaning the company likely will be bringing new people — and their families — into the community.

The project will also have other ripple effects, Nettleton said, with significant construction spending and construction employment while the addition is being built. Completion date is estimated for the spring of 2019.

The expansion project is just one in a series of major investments Cambrex has made in its Charles City site, including the $50 million production and warehouse expansion project that was completed last year.

Part of this latest project funding will include more than $830,000 in state and local economic development incentives. Nettleton said that incentive package is important because it’s a testament by local and state officials that they want Cambrex doing business in Iowa.

In the application to the Iowa Economic Development Authority for parts of the incentive package, the Charles City Area Development Corp. said there were three other Cambrex manufacturing sites that were being considered for the expanded production capacity — in High Point, North Carolina; Karlskoga, Sweden; and Paullo, Italy.

The total economic development incentive package has these parts:

• $125,000 forgivable loan from the Iowa Economic Development Authority.
• $36,250 forgivable loan from the city of Charles City.
• $25,375 forgivable loan from the Charles City Area Development Corp.
• $120,000 in state sales, service and use tax refund.
• $55,898 in state research activities credit.
• $300,000 in job training funds through the Iowa Industrial New Jobs Training Program, administered through North Iowa Area Community College.
• $170,000 in local property tax exemption through tax increment financing (TIF) in the Southwest Bypass Urban Renewal Area.

The Floyd County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 10, and the Charles City Council will hold a public hearing on Monday, Oct. 16, regarding an urban renewal plan amendment for the Southwest Bypass Urban Renewal Area to use the TIF funds for the Cambrex project.

The company will finance more than $26 million of the project’s cost itself. The large majority of that expense is for manufacturing machinery and equipment.