North-Central Indiana update.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: Top Business Stories

TIPPECANOE COUNTY

A $6 million, 55,000-square-foot facility for Cook Biotech Inc. is going up in the Purdue Research Park, reports Mike Brooks, president of Greater Lafayette Progress Inc. It's adjacent to the company's existing facility, which will remain in use, and will house laboratory, product development and administration space when it opens next spring. The company employs about 70.

Acell Inc., a Maryland company that employs 10 and has been operating a pilot office locally, is moving into an 11,000-square-foot space in Lafayette's INOK Center, with plans to double employment in the next three years. The company is investing $500,000 for equipment to make tissue-engineered medical and veterinary products.

Construction gets under way in November on the $30 million Renaissance Place, a commercial and condominium project by Lafayette-based Wexford Development Co., reports Rod Evans, F.C. Tucker/Lafayette Realtors. It will cover a full downtown block. The first phase includes two six-story buildings and a parking garage expected to be open late 2004. A third six-story building comes in the second phase.

HOWARD COUNTY

Employment at Howard County's top three industrial employers is down some 4,000 jobs from this time last year to about 14,775.

DaimlerChrysler has 7,680 on the job making vehicle transmissions, and Delphi Delco has 6,400 working at its automotive electronics plant. They've each dropped about 2,000 workers at their Kokomo plants. And Haynes International is down about 50, with 690 workers making high-performance alloys, also in Kokomo.

The county is picking up 40 new jobs when Adept Custom Molders, which now" employs 168, moves into its $4 million new plastic injection molding facility in Kokomo.

CASS COUNTY

The lights are about to go out at Trelleborg Automotive in Logansport, leaving more than 350 without jobs, reports Jim Weaver, president of the Logansport/Cass County Economic Development Foundation. The Swedish company announced in June that will it close its vehicle anti-vibration system plant sometime this year.

The county's top two employers, however, are doing well, he says. Tyson Fresh Meats Inc., formerly IBP Inc., has increased employment by about 100 to 1,800. And wire harness maker TM. Morris Manufacturing, which employs about 450, is now hiring, with business up some 15 percent to 20 percent.

WABASH COUNTY

Wabash welcomed Drudge Screw Products to town in the past year and saw an equipment expansion at G&S...