Niagara Ventures will create more business opportunity in the Catawba Valley with the completion of its first new facility this summer.

The Charlotte-based company announced Friday that it will build up to four buildings on a 22-acre site within Claremont Industrial Park beginning this month, EDC Director of Business Recruitment Julie Pruett said. After grading the property, Niagara Ventures will construct a 48,000 square foot building that can be expanded to up to 100,000 square feet.

Niagara Ventures specializes in constructing shell buildings for the industrial market. The buildings will not be designed with a specific business in mind, but rather will be custom tailored once a business buys or leases the building.

ADEVCO is another development company already doing much the same thing constructing 60,000 square feet of office space off McDonald Parkway and Tate Boulevard.  The company already has its concrete walls up and expects to have the building complete in March.

Pruett said the EDC is targeting advance industrial companies to move into the shell buildings.  She said the focus is on automotive parts components, plastics and metalworking.  The EDC hopes those type of industries will bring greater diversity to the local economy.

In the past, she said the EDC has lost opportunities to bring the advanced industrial companies to Catawba County because the area didn’t have the kind of pre-fabricated buildings the industries tend to prefer.  Pruett said 85 percent of the EDC’s clients are looking for an existing structure with high concrete ceilings, a product Niagara Ventures will bring to Catawba County for the first time.

“We don’t have that in our product industry (now),” Pruett said.  “This will give us something to sell.  It really provides us with a benefit we haven’t had before with available product that is appealing to the types of industries we are recruiting.”

She said Niagara Ventures is anticipating a $3 to $4.5 million investment in the buildings in Claremont, though she said it will depend on which companies move in.  The number of jobs that will be added to Catawba County will also weigh heavily upon the industries that come in, Pruett said, some industries employ more people than others.

“For Catawba County if nothing else, it’s important to bring in different industry, a wide variety of industry, so we can provide jobs to this local area,” Claremont Mayor Glenn Morrison said.

The company looked at sites in Charlotte and throughout Catawba County before deciding to build in Claremont, Pruett said.  She said the three things that appealed to Niagara Ventures was the close proximity to Interstate 40, an established industrial park and flat topography.

The first building is due to be completed by the end of this summer and the EDC is already actively recruiting industries to fill the building and bring jobs.

“We are pleased that Niagara Ventures answered our call for new modern industrial buildings,” said Kitty Barnes, Chairman of the Catawba County Board of Commissioners in a news release.  “We’re looking forward to seeing a quality development that will appeal to advanced manufacturers, thereby creating better jobs for our citizens.”