Guardian Industries Corp. is building a $120-million plant in Mexico to make glass mainly for the construction industry. The plant in the central state of Queretaro will begin production in the third quarter of 2004, produce 650 tons of float glass a day and employ about 300.
Guardian will join Vitro SA, Mexico's largest glassmaker, and France's Cie de Saint-Gobain as the only producers in Mexico of float glass, which are thick sheets of raw glass.
The Auburn Hills-based glassmaker sells more than 65,000 tons of glass a year in Mexico through a 3-year-old distribution center in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, which has about a third the capacity of the new plant.