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Gwinnett County’s largest Canadian investor has opened its third facility in the county and fourth in Georgia, a $5 million expansion in Lawrenceville that will create 42 jobs.
Price Industries Inc., whose parent company is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, already employs around 1,200 people in the state, including close to 800 in the county, where it was named Partnership Gwinnett’s large manufacturer of the year in 2023.
While unveiling a new facility only utilizing half its capacity, executives teased another expansion they said was likely destined for Gwinnett: an additional 160,000 square feet of space.
Georgia has benefited from Price’s focus on “vertical integration” since Gerry Price, who still owns the company, picked the state over Utah and Nebraska in 1989.
Chuck Fraley, Price Industries Inc.’s president, told Global Atlanta that Price is willing to invest more upfront capital than some competitors to shore up its supply chains and more reliably serve customers.
Unlike many HVAC firms, Price even makes its own circuit boards and control systems, a fact that helped insulate the company from the worst supply-chain shocks of the pandemic.
“Wherever you can do it, it supports your desire to serve, and you’re not as reliant on other outside vendors and sources,” Mr. Fraley added. “So, if we make a little less profit because we manufacture this here versus buying it from India, our owner’s OK with that. He’s also adamant about keeping jobs in North America, and his quip is: ‘If we send all of our stuff offshore, where our kids going to work?’”
These principles are driving the new water coil facility. In a tour after presentations and a catered lunch, Price technicians showed guests how expertly bent copper tubes are combined with precisely machined aluminum fins into units of various sizes that heat and cool air in commercial buildings.
Nolan Hosking, senior vice president, said the factory opening shows how Price expands into new markets both to diversify its offerings and support the growth of companies selling its solutions in the market.
“Our reps have been growing at at a frantic pace as well, and in recent years, we noticed that we weren’t as comfortable with the capacity and the surge capacity that we needed to properly serve them,” he said.
Opening the new facility at 800 Progress Center Ave. in unincorporated Lawrenceville is freeing up 14,000 square feet in Price’s Winder factory (Barrow County) that will be devoted to fan coils, even as executives scout out yet another future plant they said would likely be in Gwinnett.
It’s the latest in a series of moves that have further entrenched Price in the metro Atlanta business community 35 years since it first set up shop here.
“We vertically integrate so we can control our own destiny as much as possible and we can, it makes it a lot easier to fulfill commitments to customers when you control your own destiny,” Mr. Hoskings said.
Deven Cason, vice president of economic development at Partnership Gwinnett, said Price is a model corporate citizen that truly embodies its ideals of service. It’s also a prime example of the impact of the some 600 foreign-based companies calling the county home.
“We love our international companies, and I’m still holding out hope that I get to visit the headquarters in Winnipeg,” Ms. Cason said, adding: “I hope it’s not in winter, but I’ll take it if I get the invitation.”
Mr. Fraley, Price’s president, said that a recent visit to a trade forum in Washington underscored that Canadian companies can have a more significant role in helping the U.S. achieve supply-chain resiliency.
Price is doing its best to contribute, he said, by making new components for its own systems and, once caught up, going after external manufacturers as clients. Beyond hospitals and other commercial buildings, a new Price niche is data centers, where its equipment is essential to keeping the air clear and cooling down heat-generating servers, Mr. Fraley said.
Matthew Holtkamp, Gwinnett County District 4 commissioner and an entrepreneur in the HVAC industry, said the announcement showed that Price is “committed to job creation.”
The investment “will help support a more balanced tax base and keep the cost of living more affordable for all residents without sacrificing the services residents expect,” Mr. Holtkamp said.
Price expects to fill 15 of the 42 promised jobs by the end of 2024.
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