From Beginners to Bigshots: Going and Growing with the SBA
Margaret Allen  |  02-Aug-2002

Dallas Business Journal - August 2, 2002

http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2002/07/29/daily46.html

From Beginners to Bigshots: Going and Growing with the SBA

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EZ-FLO to build $10M Rockwall campus

Dallas Business Journal - August 2, 2002

 

Plumbing manufacturer and distributor EZ-FLO International Inc. plans to build a $10 million campus in the Rockwall Technology Park.

The California-based company currently employs 30 at its North Texas operations in Greenville.

The 200,000-square-foot project will consolidate operations in Greenville and Houston. It ultimately will employ about 100, said Pam Mundo, executive director of the Rockwall Economic Development Corp.

Landing the project is significant for Rockwall, according to Mundo.

"Our goal is to diversify our tax base and eventually get to 50 percent commercial-residential," said Mundo. "So this is an important project. It adds 16.5 percent to our commercial-industrial tax base."

Rockwall's total industrial-commercial tax base now is about 32 percent of its total $1.58 billion in 2002.

With EZ-FLO, the 223-acre Rockwall Technology Park will jump from 19 percent occupancy to 30 percent, said Mundo.

The city built the $5 million park in 1999 with economic development funds from a portion of sales tax receipts. The two-phase park includes $300,000 in state-of-the-art fiber optic infrastructure.

So far the park has added $41 million to the property tax roles and at build-out, is expected to add $100 million, according to Gary Martin, a board member of the Rockwall Economic Development Corp.

As part of an incentive package for EZ-FLO, Rockwall is paying the company a development grant of $180,000 over the two phases of its $10 million project.

The first phase will include a 100,000 square-foot building to house manufacturing, assembly, warehouse and sales operation functions. It is set to open in summer 2003. EZ-FLO expects to build the second phase, another 100,000 square feet in the next six years.

An international supplier, EZ-FLO has a network of manufacturers in 92 countries.

Web site: http://www.ez-flo.net.