Irish Company Investing $6.8 Milliion in AZ

AREZ LLC will locate its U.S. headquarters and a new manufacturing facility in Crossett, Arizona; their first location in North America. The Irish company will invest approximately $6.8 million in the facility and create 121 new jobs.

AREZ will begin construction immediately and hopes to begin initial production by October 2011. The 270,000-square-foot facility on a six-acre site will produce rosin-based resins for the printing ink industry with the capacity to produce 25 million pounds of resin annually. The primary supplier of rosin to AREZ will be Georgia Pacific in Crossett. AREZ Crossett will also provide tolling services for production of resin solutions.

John L. Smith, chief operating officer of AREZ LLC, remarked that he has never worked with state and local government officials who have shown such attitudes of “how can we help” and “let’s get it done”. “We at AREZ are thankful for these attitudes because we saw the local manufacturing infrastructure, talent pool, and quality of life as very desirable for us to place our facilities in Crossett,” said Smith. “The government streamlined the process whereby we can get into operation much faster than we would have ever thought possible.”

In addition to its headquarters in Ireland, AREZ International also has locations in mainland Europe and China. With the China manufacturing facility at capacity, the company chose to locate in Crossett to better meet the needs of clients in the U.S.

“AREZ choosing Crossett is a statement about the quality of life and the resiliency of this community,” said Crossett Mayor Scott McCormick.