New aircraft-products plant bringing 200 jobs to Suffolk

SUFFOLK

Sparta Composite Products will build a $13.2 million plant in Suffolk, creating nearly 200 jobs within five years, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced Tuesday.

The company, a supplier for the aerospace and defense industries and based in San Diego, expects to begin hiring this summer.

It plans to open a 67,000-square-foot building by December in Northgate Commerce Park in the northern part of Suffolk and another building of up to 87,000 square feet within five years.

Sparta estimated that it would bring 198 jobs to Suffolk by 2014. The average salary will be $43,000, said Cindy Cave, the city's director of economic development.

City and state officials cheered the news at a time when layoffs and closings have all but drowned out expansions.

"To get an announcement is fortuitous, and to get one that's a $13.2 million capital investment is excellent," Cave said. "We think it's a big deal."

Sparta Composite Products' parent company, Sparta Inc., has operations at three locations in Virginia: Arlington, Centreville and Newport News.

"We explored many possible locations around the country," Paul Oppenheim, Sparta Composite Products' vice president and general manager, said in a statement, but Suffolk "offered the best overall value to our business case."

He cited its "proximity to excellent academic institutions" and "a highly skilled replenishing work force."

Oppenheim could not be reached Tuesday.

The city's growing cluster of defense and aerospace offices also attracted Sparta, Cave said.

Suffolk hosts such companies as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, as well as the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center.

The state will provide a $300,000 incentive grant from the Governor's Opportunity Fund for the development, a news release from Kaine's office said. Suffolk, Cave said, is considering offering Sparta an economic development incentive package after the first building is completed. She declined to say how much it might be.

Suffolk officials had been talking with executives at Sparta for at least a year, Cave said. The company builds engine products and missile and aircraft components, among other items, according to its Web site.

ProLogis, a developer based in Denver, will construct the buildings, Cave said. In April, Suffolk announced that ProLogis planned to develop 125 acres of industrial land at Northgate Commerce Park, off Nansemond Parkway at Shoulders Hill Road.

The same day, Suffolk made another major economic-development announcement, Boeing's plan to open a center for war-game simulations at Bridgeway Technology Center III.

At least two high-profile plant closings announced recently will affect Suffolk, but not seriously, Cave said.

Tidewater Blanching, a division of Peanut Corp. of America, the Lynchburg-based company that filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after it was accused of shipping tainted peanut products, closed last month.

The Suffolk plant, which was not implicated in the associated salmonella outbreak, employed fewer than 40 people, Cave said.

Also last month, Smithfield Foods Inc. announced that it would close six plants, including the Smithfield Packing Co. South plant in Smithfield. Nearly 750 of its employees will be transferred to an adjacent plant. But Smithfield still stands to lose nearly 630 jobs between layoffs and transfers to plants in North Carolina.

Cave said some affected workers might live in the northwestern part of Suffolk, but she predicted that it wouldn't have a "huge impact" on the city.

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com