Creative Liquid Coatings Inc., an Indiana-based company serving the automotive, heavy truck, power sports and structural medical furniture industries, said it will invest about $8 million to expand production at its Brownsville manufacturing plant and create up to 150 new jobs through an incentives agreement with the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation.
CLC specializes in high-volume injection molding, painting, chrome plating and other services. In June the company bought “significant assets” of the injection-molding firm CK Technologies, which opened in the former Titan Tire building at 6720 Paredes Line Rd. in 2011. In addition to the Brownsville plant, CLC acquired CK Technologies locations in Grand Prairie, Montpelier, Ohio, and Mount Airy, N.C.
GBIC Chairman John Cowen Jr. said the organization is “excited to work in partnership with Creating Liquid Coatings and support their growth efforts in Brownsville.”
“CLC’s capital investment and creation of 150 new high-paying jobs will allow our city’s tax base to increase while providing our young workforce with the opportunity to develop and advance,” he said.
Cowen said the GBIC incentives are performance based, meaning the company has to meet certain benchmarks to receive it, Cowen said.
“If they create the jobs at certain wage levels then there’s an incentive tied to those jobs,” he said. “The same thing with the capital investment. … They have to show via property tax renditions that these investments are actually made and producing an additional benefit for the community.”
Cowen said he didn’t have an exact timeline but thinks CLC intends to move on the expansion and new hiring fairly soon. He said the incentives “fit squarely within GBIC’s goal to help companies invest and expand in Brownsville” and that the pending expansion is a win for the community.
CK Technologies’ original decision to locate in the city more than a decade ago was also a plus, showing that Brownsville can be a supplier base and manufacturing location for the automotive industry, a large portion of which is located in Mexico, Cowen said.
GBIC Interim Executive Director Constanza Miner said Brownsville’s growth is attracting the interest of multiple industries, nationally and internationally.
“Through tailored assistance and multiple programs such as We Grow our Own 2.0 and Launch BTX, GBIC is ready to assist new and existing businesses to thrive in Brownsville,” she said. “We look forward to supporting Creative Liquid Coatings with its expansion plans.”
CLC Human Resources Director Griselda Munoz said that “GBIC’s outstanding leadership, excellent customer service, and unwavering support have made choosing Brownsville easy for our company expansion plans” and that the company looks forward to strengthening the partnership.”
GBIC, a Type-A economic development corporation, said it “seeks to promote economic growth in Brownsville and Cameron County by empowering a young and skilled inter-generational workforce that drives innovation in the area.”
