$4.9M Real Estate Sale Launches Zarbana Expansion
COLUMBIANA, Ohio – Zarbana Aluminum Extrusions LLC has taken the first big step – a $4.9 million building and land purchase – to begin the process of expanding its operations here and installing what’s said will be a huge “state-of-the-art” extrusion press.
On Oct. 3, Vienna Enterprises LLC, a Zarbana affiliate, purchased from Buckeye Transfer Realty LLC the plant building it operates at 41738 Esterly Drive here in the industrial park operated by Buckeye, plus 60 acres of adjacent land.
“It’s a big deal for the area,” says Lee Stoneburner, president of Buckeye Transfer Realty. “They’re going to be putting in another extrusion press that probably will be one of the largest in North America,” he confirms.
“From my standpoint, we’re just pleased that we’re able to assist in the development of Columbiana.”
In May, the extrusion plant’s operations manager, Dave Baco (pictured above), told The Business Journal the company is planning to build a 60,000-square-foot addition “on the end of the building” that would house a 20-inch press, “which will be the largest state-of-the-art extrusion press in the United States,” he said.
“We hope to have that up by the end of 2020 and that will create maybe 10, 15, 20 new jobs.”
Baco was interviewed as part of The Business Journal’s Rally Around Small Business campaign that recognized Zarbana as an “Unsung Hero” of small business.
Zarbana is owned by the Italian company Estrusione Roccafranca, a family owned company based in Brescia, Italy, Baco clarified in an email to The Business Journal received Oct. 11.
Extral Technology, another business owned by the Borghesi family, is manufacturing the new line. It will be delivered in March and be operational in May, Baco said.
According to the company’s website, Zarbana.com, its products are used to manufacture windows, doors, trucks/trailers, solar technology, displays, and chalkboards.
The company takes pride in recycling all the aluminum not used in its final products. The extrusions it produces range in size from 8.5 inches to a quarter inch in diameter, and are either sent to packaging for shipment, or to the fabrication or CNC machining departments for further processing.
Buckeye Transfer, a cargo and freight company, maintains its office building with “room to expand,” Stoneburner says, at the industrial park just off the Route 11 exit for Columbiana.
The site, formerly National Refractories, is served by rail, which makes it ideal for Buckeye Transfer, a transloading operation for materials used by the oil and gas industry. Following the property sale to Zarbana’s affiliate, the realty company owns about 34 acres, Stoneburner says.
As for Buckeye Transfer, its transloading operation “is kind of slow these days. I look for it to rebound in January” as 2020 operating budgets kick in, he explains.
In 2013 and 2014, Buckeye Transfer was busy receiving and delivering materials, primarily frack sand, to drilling operations in Columbiana County, which at the time was “the epicenter” of Utica Shale exploration, Stoneburner says.
Today the epicenter has moved south to Belmont and Jefferson counties, “still within traveling distance” of his industrial park.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been corrected with the name of the Italian company that owns Zarbana.
Pictured at top: Zarbana Aluminum Extrusions operations manager Dave Baco, interviewed in May as part of The Business Journal’s Rally Around Small Business campaign.
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