Southwest Indiana update: the region's top business stories.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: Regional Report Southwest

Rolling into town. A new industry rolls into Tell City in Perry County late this year. Construction is under way on a $22.5 million manufacturing facility for Alabama-based Webb Wheel Products Inc., reports Greg Wathen, executive director of Perry County Development Corp. "They hope to be powered by the end of this year. This is going to be fast track," Wathen says.

A Marmon Highway Technologies company, Webb Wheel makes wheel and drum components for the heavy truck industry, including spoke wheels, hubs, brake drums and rotors for medium- and heavy-duty trucks, trailers and buses. It's the company's fourth North American facility.

Plans are to begin production next January, employ about 82 and invest another $3.5 million within two years. Webb Wheel is building its 118,000-square-foot facility on 54 acres in the Perry County Industrial Park Riverview.

Webb will supply product to another company in the park, Thyssen Krupp Waupaca. The iron ferrous foundry employs 850 and makes cast products for the transportation industry. "This is part of our overall strategy, a cluster strategy," Wathen says. "We look at the primary employer and ask, 'Who are their suppliers?' Waupaca was part of our key in attracting Webb."

The jobs are high-wage and high-tech, he says. "This will be the most technologically advanced manufacturing facility we have. And considering that Waupaca has a $200 million investment, that's saying a lot. Webb will have a lot of robotics, a lot of automated executive director of the Daviess County Growth Council. The county has committed $2 million to the project, with groundbreaking expected in 2005. "Several things are working in its favor," Arnold says, including proximity to I-69.

Growing what's here. In Jasper, Stens, which bills itself as "The Parts

Company ... First and Fast," has moved into a 90,000-square-foot facility. "We bought an existing facility, refinished it, and added on 13,000 square feet," reports Peter Ariens, president. The company employs 162 in Jasper and another 75 to 100 at its six U.S. distribution centers and Alabama manufacturing plant, where it makes monofilament line used in trimmers.

Founded in 1970 and purchased by the Ariens family in 1995, Stens sells more than 6,000...