Next year’s docket for Rinker Materials Corp. includes construction of one concrete pipe, one block and two ready mixed plants, all on home turf in Florida.
CP STAFF
Next year’s docket for Rinker Materials Corp. includes construction of one concrete pipe, one block and two ready mixed plants, all on home turf in Florida. One ready mixed operation is sited in Port St. Joe, a Gulf Coast town about 30 miles east of Panama City. It will be integrated into seven plants that Rinker acquired from RMC USA Inc. in June 2004, thus entering the Florida Panhandle. A second ready mixed plant will be built at Rinker Materials’ Lake Wales sand mine in central Florida.
A new concrete block plant will be built at North Fort Myers in the southwestern part of the state, with projected production volume of 6 Û 8 million blocks a year. A new pipe and box culvert plant will be located in central Florida, replacing dated operations in Apopka, Plant City and Jacksonville.
We have a well-established template for new plants and these are low risk, high return investments, notes Rinker Group’s West Palm Beach-based CEO David Clarke. They incorporate state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques which allow us to further improve product quality, while reducing costs.
In addition to Florida developments, Rinker Materials has also announced a joint venture with Arizona’s Charter Materials. Rinker purchased the company’s ready mixed plant near Prescott and a 49 percent stake in its sand operation. Prescott is about an hour north of Phoenix, Rinker’s main market in the state.