A company headed by Midwest Tube Mills CEO Rick Russell bought the Reliance Electric plant Wednesday. Midwest's sister company, R & T Steel and Wire, will move in and be expanded with the hiring of 41 more employees, and an automotive plant is being courted.
An industrial complex is planned also at the Reliance site, which has 100 acres, Russell said in an announcement Wednesday. Midwest Tube Mills, 2891 Michigan Road, is next to the former Reliance plant, 2855 Michigan Road.
Marybeth Boone, marketing director for Russell's companies, said there are discussions with an automotive company, and while there is a "very good possibility" it will move to the former Reliance site, negotiations are not completed. She said a confidentiality agreement prevented her from identifying the company.
For now, the first new occupant of the old Reliance plant will be R & T, which had 123 employees when it started production a year ago, and now has 186.
"R & T has been operating out of the current Midwest Tube Mills Inc. building, and we simply need more room," Russell said in the announcement. "The Reliance building will allow us the flexibility to grow right here in Madison. This plant will have equipment to provide expansion and growth of a new powder coat line and a new ful-service e-coat system."
The e-coat process will be used "for other areas of product development we're going into, maybe next year," Boone said.
Barr Properties-RBF LLC, which Russell heads, is the buyer of the Reliance plant, which closed in June. Russell also is the majority owner of R & T, which makes security panels, partitions and dog kennels.
The company is expanding its line of kennels with welded wire kennel sections that go through the powder coat and e-coat processes and come out with an appearance similar to wrought iron, Boone said.
The new sections are being accepted in communities that have restrictive covenants for types of fencing that can be used, she said.
Russell, who graduated from Southwestern High School, started Midwest Tube Mills in Edinburgh in 1993 with four employees. He moved the business to Madison in November 1999 and started R & T last year.
"Madison has been good for my company, and we look forward to growing our business here," Russell said in the announcement of the Reliance purchase.
Copyright 2010, The Madison Courier
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Editor, John C. DePrez Jr.; Executive Editor, Carol Rogers; Publishers: IBRC and IAR
