Roanoke, VA – With most of the Roanoke plant’s 172 employees looking on, Arkay Packaging Corporation’s CEO Mitchell Kaneff cut the ribbon last week to its latest expansion. The 62,000 sq ft expansion – Arkay’s second since opening a manufacturing facility in the Roanoke Region in 1996 – is proof that both the company and the region are bucking the tight-economy blues.
Kaneff and Roanoke Region leaders credit a skilled work force, reasonable taxes, steady housing costs, low utility costs, and a location within a day’s drive of the East Coast’s top markets for expansion and growth at a time when the marketplace is stumbling. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Kaneff noted that efficiencies at the Roanoke plant allowed the company to focus on helping customers better market their products through innovative packaging.
Arkay manufactures and distributes packaging for top global brands like Estee Lauder and Johnson & Johnson. The 62,000 sq ft addition – which basically doubled the size of the plant -- will allow the company to hold additional warehouse and distribution functions which until this point have been housed in a separate rented facility.
“When we first began exploring the Virginia landscape 13 years ago, working with regional economic development authorities, we very quickly recognized the Roanoke Region as being an ideally suited location for Arkay to expand to from our New York facility,” says Kaneff. “Their ability to meet our needs was, and remains, a factor in our satisfaction here. Particularly important for Arkay is a high quality of life for our employees, low operating costs, and accessibility to our major customers. The Roanoke Region is conducive to those key elements, and more.”
Alice Fletcher, executive director of Printing Industries of Virginia, agrees. The 746 members of her organization benefit from doing business in the Commonwealth of Virginia. “It is cheaper to manufacture here,” she said, adding that Virginia’s status as a right-to-work state also is an advantage.
Beth Doughty, executive director for the Roanoke Regional Partnership, says that companies looking at the region cite the combination of a reasonably priced real estate market, well-educated workforce, and proximity to a broad option of leisure time activities as reasons the area stands out among the competition.
“In addition to the business advantages, we have a new, world-class art museum, whitewater canoeing, two recreational lakes, and four major colleges and universities within 30 miles,” says Doughty. Arkay is a supporter of the new Taubman Museum of Art and has designed the gift boxes for its gift shop.
Access to higher education benefits packaging employers directly. The Virginia Packaging Applications Center (VAPAC) is a top-notch local resource through Dabney S. Lancaster College in Clifton Forge. Unmatched in the mid-Atlantic, VAPAC provides students with essential skills for employment in the packaging industry. Students who have completed the program are not only adding a valuable skill and knowledge level to the local workforce, but are also applying those skills to jobs with packaging manufacturers across the country.
Additionally, Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources boasts a competitive Packaging Science option through its Dept of Wood Science and Forest Products, leading students toward careers as packaging engineers, process engineers, and packaging research scientists.
“Immediate access to high quality workforce development programs is putting employers here a step above their competition,” Doughty says. “For packaging companies seeking the right location to fuel success, this area is a perfect fit.”
And as far as Arkay Packaging is concerned, Kaneff is looking ahead to a bright future in the Roanoke Region despite the national economic challenges ahead. “We are very satisfied with our Virginia location and our continued success here. Since we were first founded in 1922, Arkay has obviously weathered more than its share of unpredictable markets and an ever-evolving corporate landscape. I have every faith that we will not only survive these volatile current times, but that we will excel.”