new andersen facility result of vigorous arizona outreach

The Western-most outreach of the internationally known Andersen Corporation could see construction beginning on a 546,000 square foot facility early next year.

“We’re very excited about this,” says Eliza Chlebeck, corporate communications manager for Andersen, adding “a lot of work and planning has taken place to get us to this point.”

The modern production plant, which will be a part of larger planned campus, will go up on nearly 70 acres at the intersection of S. Cotton Lane and W. Commerce Drive in the city of Goodyear and will focus on the company’s increasingly popular Fibrex line of replacement windows.

The facility will be built inside the Goodyear Crossing Industrial Park.

With an estimated capital investment of at least $105 million, the Bayport, Minnesota-based Andersen is making its first foray into the West.

Appearing before the Goodyear City Council in September, Ben Adamson, the senior director of supply chain integration at Andersen, said the company was “excited and energized to join this community as we embark upon this big endeavor for us, which is to expand our manufacturing and distributive capacity.”

“This is a location that makes sense for Andersen in so many ways,” says Chris Comacho, the president and chief executive officer of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, which worked with a host of other state and local agencies to secure the Andersen move.

“Andersen is a very high-value company,” continues Comacho, “and any company that wants to invest this level of capital, $100 million and more, hiring almost 500 people, is the kind of project we embrace.”

Launched more than a century ago, Andersen as of 2016 was enjoying sales of more than $2.5 billion, providing a wide variety of windows and doors for both residential and commercial use.

More than two decades ago, the company revealed to the world Fibrex, a material that is made of thermoplastic polymer and wood fiber, both of which are either totally or partially reclaimed from Andersen manufacturing operations.

Fibrex is now used in all of the company’s Renewal by Andersen Division and its 100 Series windows and doors.

The products that will be made in the new Arizona plant will be in the Fibrex line.

“Andersen is known for its quality, energy efficient, and environmentally friendly products,” noted Georgia Lord, the Mayor of Goodyear, in a statement welcoming the company to her city.

Lord also lauded Andersen’s “commitment to exemplary ethics in dealing with customers and communities.”

“We are excited to have Andersen become part of the major corporate presence in Goodyear,” added Lord, who had earlier joked in a council meeting that if there was another company that made windows besides Andersen, she wasn’t sure who they were.

The company’s ethics is also evidenced in its philanthropic activities, which have so far seen it donate more than $50 million to various community, social, and support groups.

Representing all of the municipal entities in the larger Phoenix metro area, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council conducted due diligence for Andersen as it considered opening a site in Arizona, analyzing such things as the local labor market, tax climate, and how long it takes to obtain building permits.

“We have twenty-three cites in the Metro Phoenix region, and we have them all unified into one delivery system so that when a company wants to move here and needs us to analyze a building or landsite, we operate as one,” explains Comacho.

“And that’s really how we see our job,” he continues.  “We’re trying to create a cohesive value proposition for these different industries.”

As planned, the new Andersen presence in Arizona, which will be owned and operated by Andersen Regional Manufacturing, a subsidiary of the larger corporation, will go up on currently vacant land that could see an expansion of the planned campus later.

“It’s just one building as of now,” says Chlebeck, who adds that the company “anticipates operations to begin there in the middle of 2020.”

Additional construction with an estimated price tag of around $95 million could be seen sometime in the next 6 years.

Besides its 2.8 million square foot presence in Bayport, Andersen currently has more than a dozen other manufacturing locations in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Georgia, and Texas.

Earlier this year, the company announced it was expanding its Bayport campus, spending $40 million and adding 15,000 square feet to an existing warehouse on the north end of that site, and another 45,000 square feet on the south side.

By Garry Boulard

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