Southern Va. Big Deal: Shattering records

Poland-based Press Glass, a flat-glass fabricator for the commercial construction industry, will gain a competitive edge when it breaks ground on a $155.2 million expansion of its Ridgeway plant in the second quarter.

It’s the single largest investment by a business in Henry County’s history, topping packaging manufacturer Crown Holdings’ $145 million investment in 2021, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said during the company’s August 2023 announcement. It’s also expected to create around 335 jobs, nearly doubling Press Glass’ local workforce and making it one of the county’s largest employers.

Gregg Vanier, Press Glass’ director of manufacturing and technology, says the expansion, which will include automation upgrades, will help the plant become more competitive and increase production. “We’re always looking for new ways to automate and increase efficiency,” he explains.

Press Glass’ expansion will be a 360,000-square-foot addition to its plant at Commonwealth Crossing Business Centre.

Founded in 1991, Press Glass has grown into Europe’s largest independent flat-glass processing operation. With its headquarters in Konopiska, Poland, the company operates 13 factories in Europe and two in the United States — the Ridgeway plant and one 12 miles away in Stoneville, North Carolina. Mainly serving commercial construction clients, the company manufactures a variety of flat-glass products, including panels as large as about 10.5 feet by 19.5 feet.

Buildings where its glass has been used include the covered pedestrian walkway at Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, and Amaris, a 12-story waterfront condominium building with an all-glass façade in Washington, D.C.

Press Glass was Commonwealth Crossing’s first tenant when it built its 270,000-square-foot plant there in 2020. Press Glass chose the site because of its easy access to interstates and centralized location to its customer base on the East Coast.

The industrial park also contains the Commonwealth Centre for Advanced Training, a resource for Commonwealth Crossing tenants operated as a partnership by the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp., Henry County, Patrick & Henry Community College and The Harvest Foundation. Press Glass Talent Acquisition and Development Manager Karolina Styk says the training center was especially helpful during the plant’s initial stages of construction and installation by providing temporary offices, storage for large equipment and training for the company’s first group of local hires.

When Press Glass considered expanding, the Martinsville-Henry County EDC worked with VEDP to land the deal. Youngkin approved a $2 million grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Henry County, which owns Commonwealth Crossing, with the project. Additional funding and services to support workforce training will be provided through VEDP’s Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

Press Glass already relies on local community colleges to provide leadership training, and some employees take classes to earn advanced manufacturing certifications needed for maintaining the plant’s automated machinery. Staff also visit the community colleges to promote career options available at the plant.

“Fostering connections with local entities like community colleges is very important to us,” Vanier says, “and we believe these relationships are mutually beneficial.”

Press Glass’ expansion, its first in Commonwealth Crossing, will make the plant one of the largest and most automated facilities processing architectural glass in the United States, says Styk. The plant will need employees with expertise in robotics and mechatronics, as well as those who can perform jobs such as shipping and receiving, quality control, estimation, customer service and IT, says Vanier. Hiring began in late 2023 and is continuing through 2025.

Henry County Administrator Dale Wagoner says that the county has seen a significant increase in average weekly wages for manufacturing jobs due to the presence of Press Glass and Crown Holdings in Commonwealth Crossing.

“These are good-paying jobs and they’re increasing wages at other companies,” he says. “For a while, we had a drain to the Roanoke Valley. Now those people are coming back to our area and people from other areas are coming here to work.”

Mark Heath, president and CEO of Martinsville-Henry County EDC, says he thinks that Press Glass and Crown Holdings will help attract other advanced manufacturing companies to the 765-acre industrial park.

“We’ve analyzed their workforce here, and we have proven that we can support industries in aerospace, food processing, automotive, so those are some of the target sectors that we’re going at recruiting,” says Wagoner.

“Companies generally like to locate where people are successful and where they can have the facilities they need to develop their site,” he says. “Who knows? That could be supplier companies or other spinoffs.”