SALT LAKE CITY — Missouri-based HydroBlok on Thursday announced it will be onshoring manufacturing from Asia to the U.S. with a new manufacturing plant in the Beehive State.
Founded 10 years ago, the company produces innovative, 100% waterproof, 100% mold-proof interior and exterior building materials made out of high-density foam for construction projects that include exterior sheathing, stucco and more.
“It has a four-times higher thermal resistance rate. So, what that really means in your home, you can keep the warm air inside better. You can keep the cool air inside, reducing your energy footprint (and) making for a more sustainable product and longevity in your home,” said Colin House, CEO of HydroBlok.
The new manufacturing facility will be located in Grantsville.
“We are thrilled to welcome Hydroblok to Tooele County,” Tooele County Council Chairman Jared Hamner said in a statement. “Hydroblok’s investment will bring quality career jobs and further strengthen our local economy while helping builders meet housing demands.”
House said he envisions the facility immediately supplying hundreds of jobs to Utahns, eventually growing to thousands of jobs as the scale of production ramps up.
But how soon could Utahns start to benefit from this influx of job opportunities?
“Probably by May-ish,” House said. “We’re actually, literally underway getting the site locked down. The equipment is already on its way, so we’ll have the factory up and running, hopefully, by the end of Q2 (second quarter of the fiscal calendar). It sounds crazy, but it’s fast, and we’re doing it.”
Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, sees the onshoring as an opportunity to create more jobs outside of Utah’s well-known tech industry.
“We need to make sure that we’re also creating manufacturing jobs. That way, we can keep people in Utah who aren’t necessarily in the tech field, and the fact that they’re going to be in Grantsville means they’re bringing manufacturing jobs to a place where we have people that want to do manufacturing jobs,” Maloy said. “Sourcing it from Utah means it’s supporting other Utah jobs.”
Maloy also thinks it will help the state build less expensive, more efficient homes, “which fills another huge need we have,” she said.
In addition to HydroBlok’s onshoring, the company is partnering with Utah-based Nilson Homes to build a test home inside and out with HydroBlok’s materials.
Jed Nilson, owner and president of Nilson Homes, said he was initially drawn to HydroBlok based on the energy efficiency improvements that can be had through the materials and the fact that HydroBlok’s material is 60% lighter than the typical sheetrock Nilson Homes uses.
“The thing that really sealed the deal on making me all-in on this product was the fact that it’s being manufactured in Utah,” Nilson said. “Part of our mission in Nilson Homes is to help Utahns stay in Utah without having to live in their parent’s basement. In order to do that, you need to have a really good job, and so this is providing jobs. And then you need to be able to produce homes that they can afford. We feel like HydroBlok is going to help us accomplish our mission.”
Maloy also thinks HydroBlok can serve as a catalyst for other innovative construction companies to move their operations to Utah.
“This is what we’ve seen with the tech jobs. You get a couple of innovative companies, and it creates an ecosystem, and it draws everybody else in. We’ve done that really well in Utah with defense industry companies, with Silicon Slopes. Now, I’m excited to see us doing this with manufacturing,” Maloy said
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