Sany America this past week opened its new 400,000 sq. ft. office and manufacturing facility at the southern end of Peachtree City’s industrial park.
That puts all of the company’s workforce under one roof as it prepares to begin its assembly operations at the facility.
“We are looking forward to ramping up production in our manufacturing area,” said Sany America President Jack Tang. “By the end of the year, we should have our first concrete pump trucks roll off of our assembly line, and then it will only be a short time before we are producing our cranes and hydraulic excavators as well.”
Sany has invested some $60 million in the site, which can be expanded to meet future growth. The company plans to surpass the 200 employee mark as assembly and production gears up later this year. That number will expand to 300 by the end of next year, state officials have said.
Sany, headquartered in China, is hoping to gain a significant foothold in the U.S. construction market, but it is said to dominate concrete pump truck sales in Asia and has overtaken Caterpillar in China’s excavator market.
This year, Sany joined the Financial Times Global 500 list and the Forbes world’s most innovative companies list.
City officials also have granted Sany a variance for an oversized wall sign, which at 660 sq. ft. is over the city’s size limit of 150 square feet.
City Planning and Zoning Administrator David Rast in a memo noted that Sany’s building will not be visible from a public street, and the company has built a “first-class” building from the expansive glass walls and a reflecting pool at the entrance to a landscaping plan that includes large canopy trees lining the entrance road.
The variance was granted in large part because of the large scale of the entire building. Also, it was noted that a number of years ago Cooper Lighting was granted a sign of more than 400 square feet via an administrative variance, which was not in accord with city ordinance at the time, Rast said.
Sany’s facility has 40,000 square feet of office space in addition to some 360,000 sq. ft. in its manufacturing area. The facility will be used to assemble heavy construction equipment including crawler cranes, excavators, motor graders and concrete pump trucks. It also will be the home of Sany’s first North American-specific product, the “RT” Global Rough Terrain Crane.
Sany chose Peachtree City in part because of its excellent labor workforce but also because of its quality of life, company officials have said. The company also received a significant tax abatement over a 10-year period because of the number of jobs that will ultimately be created under an agreement with state economic development officials.
