Plastics company breaks ground in RC

Friday, 26 October 2012 15:38

It's a project about a year-and-a-half in the making, and Friday, WL Plastics broke ground on a new manufacturing plant in Rapid City.  The company says the plant will bring with it 40 to 50 new jobs and contribute significantly to the local economy.  Black Hills FOX reporter Brendyn Medina takes us to the future site of the plant for the story.WL Plastics already has 6 plants across North America, manufacturing high density plastic pipes used in oil and gas production, as well as industrial and mining applications.  The company cites the recent explosion of activity in the Bakken oil fields for the decision to move to the Black Hills and build their 7th plant in Rapid City.  WL Plastics Director Mike Dahl says, "With the advent of all the activity in the Bakken and some other regional locations here that are also energy producing, we felt like this would be a terrific location to service them better and we needed more production capacity and this is a great place to put it."  And helping facilitate the move for WL Plastics was the Rapid City Economic Development Partnership.  The organization says attracting new businesses to the Black Hills can happen in a number of ways from active pursuit of outside companies to letting the area's friendly business environment do most of the work.  RCED Partnership President Ben Snow says, as a result, we've seen plenty of new businesses like W-L Plastics come to Rapid City in the past two decades.  Snow says, "When you look over the last 20 years, we've done a very good job. If you're familiar with our industrial park out off of Elk Vale and Concourse Drive, most of the developments have emerged in the last 20 years. But, it's been a while since we've pulled an industrial building permit in Rapid City."  Snow says the Black Hills have a number of qualities appealing to new and growing businesses, and that's why we continue to see companies like WL Plastics move into the area.  Snow says, "The good wages, the good high-skilled positions needed to operate a plant like this, we need more of those types of positions in Rapid City and I look at this as very significant. We're happy to have WL Plastics join Rapid City, but we look at this as being the first of many to come."  And it's that spike in businesses moving to the Black Hills, both Snow and WL Plastics say, is a significant sign the economy may be bouncing back, at least here in South Dakota.  For Black Hills FOX, I'm Brendyn Medina.