Blue Diamond set to move to Torrington Road
Blue Diamond will move into the former Shaw Flooring facility on Torrington Road in Clinton.
A Swedish company is set to open its first East Coast manufacturing operation in the U.S. at a Clinton facility.
Blue Diamond Industries, which manufactures high density polyethylene conduit materials for the protection of fiber optic, data and power cables, will move into the former Shaw Flooring manufacturing site on Torrington Road.
Laurens County Development Corporation President/CEO Jonathan Coleman made the official announcement of the $18 million investment by Blue Diamond, formerly dubbed “Project Mikro” by the LCDC, at Tuesday’s meeting of the Laurens County Council.
Council hosted a public hearing and approved third and final reading of an ordinance concerning infrastructure and a fee-in-lieu-of taxes (FILOT) agreement.
“It’s a good project,” Coleman said. “It’s an industry that is going to continue to grow.
It’s great for the county in a lot of ways, including the fact that they’re going into a vacant facility someone else had closed.”
Blue Diamond is expected to hire about 90 people initially with pay coming in at about the county average of $19.05 per hour. The company plans to open the Clinton operation by this July. In the meantime, company leaders will work out of the LCDC’s upcoming “launch pad” at its current offices.
“We are proud to work with the state of South Carolina and Laurens County to expand our manufacturing operations,” said Blue Diamond CEO Will Jensen. “This expansion is in line with our business growth strategy and helps to secure the capacity to support the needs of the rapidly transforming and growing U.S. network infrastructure. Our investment in Laurens County will provide us a platform where we can grow and, through additional investments, ensure the scalability of our HDPE protection conduit and the U.S. expansion of Hexatronic’s FTTH network solutions. We’d like to sincerely thank Laurens County and the state for their outstanding support, and we look forward to their continuing partnership for years to come.”
The addition of Blue Diamond is the LCDC’s first major announcement of 2022 and comes on the heels of its annual meeting, which was held on Feb. 1.
“We would like to welcome Blue Diamond Industries to Laurens County,” said Laurens County Council Chairman Brown Patterson. “This is just another example of the diversity of industries we attract to Laurens County. We wish Blue Diamond Industries well on their new facility and look forward to working with them for many years.”
