Vantage Plastics invests $31M to remodel Michigan facility

Standish, Mich.-based Vantage Plastics is investing $31 million to remodel a facility in Bangor Township, Mich., to meet increased demand across market segments.

Vantage closed on the facility, a former Dow manufacturing plant that made plastic-lined pipe, two months ago and began remodeling, Don Hale, who handles mergers, acquisitions and emerging technologies for the company, told Plastics News in an interview.

The 325,000-square-foot expansion will create 93 jobs and feature custom thermoforming, structural foam molding, extrusion and material recycling, Hale said.

Vantage expects construction on the facility to continue through July 2024, but has already begun operations in the plant. It will ramp up to full production over the course of this fall, Hale added.

The company started seeing significant growth across market segments about a year ago, in agriculture, recreation, medical and automotive, he said.

"The new site is adjacent to a rail yard so we can bring rail in for our higher volume materials coming in-house and hopefully for shipping product back out," Hale said.

The investment includes three twin-sheet thermoforming machines with product size capacity up to 9.5 feet by 16 feet, George Aultman, vice president of sales and marketing, told PN.

"This is ideal for either producing large parts or for running multiple cavity tooling when large volume production runs are required."

It also includes nine injection molding machines, one of which is a 1,500-ton structural foam injection molding machine, he added.

"Since its inception, Vantage Plastics has experienced steady growth," Paul Aultman, president of Vantage Plastics, said in a news release by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. "It's rewarding to see the business we began in a 45,000 square foot building, 27 years ago, expanding into a second facility."

Vantage Plastics, whose legal name is P.R.A. Co., employs about 350 people. The expansion will increase that to 440 or more employees, Aultman said.

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