Chelsea Holding Company expands to Westmoreland

Chelsea Holding Company yesterday finalized the purchase of 29.98-acre Lot 5 at Commerce Crossing at Westmoreland for $1,798,800. The company plans to build a 228,000-SF manufacturing facility that is expected to employ 100-150 workers within five years.

The holding company represents aluplast Group, a German conglomerate that develops, manufactures and distributes exterior building products. Among the aluplast companies is Oakmont-based Chelsea Building Products. The new Commerce Crossing at Westmoreland facility — to be known as Chelsea Building Products East — will support a manufacturing operation that will extrude PVC-based window and door profiles. It also will be home to a blending facility that will supply the compound materials used in not only the on-site manufacturing process but also the Chelsea Building Products South operation in Greenville, Texas.

"We’re excited to welcome Chelsea Building Products to business-friendly Westmoreland County,” said WCIDC Chairman Sean Kertes. “Commerce Crossing at Westmoreland has attracted a lot of interest from the very start, and our strategy of investing into the development of pad-ready industrial sites is paying off by attracting both companies and jobs.”

Peter Dewil, Chelsea Building Products CEO, said the new facility will kick off an era of growth for the company.

Chelsea Building Products is looking forward to commencing with its aggressive expansion plans and building a second facility in Pennsylvania,” Dewil said. “Logistically speaking, this site in Westmoreland County is ideal due to its strategic location and proximity to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 70. We’re looking forward to being a good corporate citizen to communities in the surrounding areas.”

WCIDC Vice-Chair Doug Chew noted that the park was specifically built to leverage interstate access.

“The Reimagining Our Westmoreland comprehensive plan identified a goal of attracting business to the I-70 corridor so that the county could maximize the economic impact of the interstate, and we’re doing exactly that with each parcel that is sold at Commerce Crossing at Westmoreland,” Chew said.

The WCIDC designed the park to offer rail connectivity, and Chelsea will work with Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad to connect a nearby freight rail spur to the new facility. Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad connects to an international rail network served by CSX, Norfolk Southern and Wheeling & Lake Erie railroads.

Russell Peterson, president of Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad, said today’s announcement is the culmination of a years-long collaboration between the railroad and WCIDC.

“We first identified this site as having a potential for future rail-served development back in 2011, and we have worked closely with WCIDC and other regional partners to turn that vision into what is now Commerce Crossing at Westmoreland," Peterson said. "Locating a high-quality manufacturer and rail user like Chelsea Building Products here is the next step in the fulfillment of that vision.”

WCIDC Secretary Ted Kopas noted that the last available parcel in the park also can provide direct rail access.

“It’s exciting any time we attract business to Westmoreland County, but it’s especially satisfying to match a purchaser with rail needs to this property,” Kopas said. “That rail spur also can be extended to Lot 2A in the park, and it would be nice to pair another enterprise with rail needs with that 9.8-acre pad site.”

Located along Interstate 70 in Sewickley Township, Commerce Crossing at Westmoreland is a five-parcel 206-acre industrial park that provides immediate interstate and rail access. WCIDC industrial parks are home to 165 companies that support more than 9,000 workers. The WCIDC park system has more than 8.3 million square feet of building space; it generates more than $6.5 million in annual tax revenue on the local and county levels.

Founded in 1983 by the Westmoreland County Board of Commissioners, the Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corporation implements a comprehensive economic development strategy to promote growth in terms of job creation, economic output and a stable tax base for Westmoreland County. Through the development of a county-wide industrial park system, a responsive Business Calling Program and involvement in public/private partnerships, WCIDC strives to foster business growth, resulting in job opportunities for the citizens of Westmoreland County.

Chelsea Building Products opened its first window profile extrusion operation in 1975 in a small warehouse in Braddock, PA. Known then as Poly-Tex, the company quickly drew attention when it introduced profiles for the first all-vinyl, tilt double-hung replacement window system to the U.S. market. That ushered in an exciting era of design, engineering, and manufacturing for extruded polymer-based profiles used in windows, doors, shutters, mouldings and Everlast® Advanced Composite Siding. Today, Chelsea produces millions of feet of lineal extrusions per year in its extrusion operations in Pennsylvania and Texas. Chelsea’s parent company aluplast gives Chelsea Building Products a global footprint and additional technical resources for continued growth and expansion. As a family-owned, second-generation business, aluplast also provides additional products for distribution that give Chelsea an international reach for their products.