ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 17, 1996 TAG: 9605170058
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
PREPARATIONS are under way for completing the book factory by April.
J.M. Turner & Co. Inc., a Roanoke general contractor, has been awarded the job of building a book factory in Roanoke County for R.R. Donnelley & Sons Inc., the company said Thursday.
And the dust is going to fly on this one. The company went looking for a builder at a time when subcontractors are up to their tool belts in new construction and renovation jobs. To accommodate them, Chicago-based Donnelley will send company representatives to Roanoke to rapidly approve blueprints, which are still being drafted, so builders can order materials.
"Everyone's got a schedule. Everyone's got other work," said John Pecaric, who will be general manager of the Donnelley plant.
Nonetheless, a completion date of April 1997 can be met, he was told. Construction is to begin soon, the companies said.
The Turner company won the contract with a bid of more than $12.5 million and beat four other builders from whom the company solicited bids. Subcontractors from the Roanoke Valley and nearby areas are lined up for most project phases, according to Jay Turner, president of the construction company.
Donnelley will install more than $50 million of printing and binding equipment, bringing its expected investment in the facility to $63 million. The facility will print and bind a variety of books with color pages, such as coffee table books, cookbooks, children's reading materials and how-to guides.
Several hundred people will have a role in putting up the 276,000-square-foot building in Valley TechPark, off U.S. 460 west of Salem, Turner said. The project requires 1,000 tons of steel.
Donnelley has said it expects to hire 175 people for the plant by the end of 1997 and 135 more by 2000. The hiring will begin late this year and increase in January, Pecaric said.
Donnelley said it expects to expand the factory in about four years, but its contract with the Turner company did not include that work.
In an unrelated announcement, Donnelley Polish American Printing Co. , a joint venture of the Donnelley company and the Polish-American Enterprise Fund, said Thursday it will build a directory printing plant in Krakow, Poland, to accommodate business growth in Central Europe.
The new 50,000 square-foot facility is to open in January.
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