Lego Group has set up a temporary packaging facility at 1600 Ruffin Mill Road in Chesterfield. (Courtesy Lego Group)
With a $1 billion manufacturing plant still in the offing in Chesterfield, Lego Group recently kicked off operations at a temporary product packaging facility elsewhere in the county.
The Danish toymaker is now up and running at 1600 Ruffin Mill Road, where it leases a 264,000-square-foot warehouse that handles the packaging of the company’s building-block kits.
The temporary center is a precursor to Lego’s plans to open a 1.7 million-square-foot manufacturing plant in the nearby Meadowville Technology Park.
The opening of the packaging facility also comes as Chesterfield provides clearer insight into incentives tied to the overall Lego project with a recent amendment to its existing grant agreement regarding the company’s efforts in the county.
In the interim, the Ruffin Mill Road facility helps meet Lego’s packaging needs and supports the company’s operations across North and South America.
“Our new external packing facility plays an important role in meeting consumer demand in the Americas region,” a Lego spokesperson said in a prepared statement. “We are enthusiastic about our progress (in 2023) and look forward to the construction of a state-of-the-art factory.”
Workers at the temporary facility sort and bag Lego pieces into the small bags one finds inside Lego kit boxes in a step referred to as pre-packing. Next up, those baggies of Lego pieces are sorted into the appropriate Lego kit boxes. Once the kits are completed, the center then packs them into larger shipping boxes and transfers them to a distribution center, where the kits then land on retailers’ shelves.
The packaging facility became fully operational in November, ahead of a previously shared timeline that anticipated the temporary facility would be open in 2024.
Lego had hired and onboarded 200 employees for the packaging facility as of late December, according to the company spokesperson. It previously said it plans to ultimately have 500 people working at the temporary center.
Folks working at the temporary facility are included in Lego’s hiring goals for its larger Chesterfield plant, and are expected to move into the new facility once it’s operational. The company plans to hire 1,760 people for the permanent Chesterfield manufacturing facility over a 10-year period.
The Chesterfield Board of Supervisors in December voted to approve an amendment to the county’s existing performance grant agreement with Lego to further spell out incentives tied to the operation of the temporary facility.
According to a staff memo, while the facility was included in the original agreement, there was a need to delineate tax incentives related to the temporary center, and the amendment “clarifies the intended incentive coverage” of the center.
The amendment adds in language that states that, so long as Lego continuously operates the temporary facility at Ruffin Mill Road until it gets a certificate of occupancy for the Meadowville plant, the company gets to retain 100 percent of the annual business license tax imposed on the Ruffin Mill site or until the company is deemed exempt from the tax, whichever happens first. Also teed up for Lego is 100 percent of the business personal property taxes levied on the Ruffin Mill Road center subject to the same requirements.
The grant agreement, which was first approved by the board in June 2022, is conditioned on Lego locating its manufacturing facility in Chesterfield, and includes further annual grant awards that start when a certificate of occupancy is issued for the Meadowville manufacturing plant.
The grant amount for the manufacturing facility is planned to be 50 percent of the marginal increase in real estate taxes paid by Lego for the first 15 years of operations at the factory, 25 percent of the marginal tax increase for years 16 to 20 and 100 percent of the taxes on the plant’s planned solar facilities which aren’t otherwise tax exempt under state law, according to a staff report.
The state agreed to provide Chesterfield with $19 million to build the facility’s pad-site infrastructure, per the June 2022 memo.
Separately, a grant agreement between Lego and the state of Virginia would award up to $56 million in grant funding between July 2027 and July 2035 if the company meets factory investment and hiring goals.
Work is underway on Lego’s upcoming factory, which is situated on a company-owned, 340-acre property at 1400 Meadowville Road.
A rendering of Lego’s planned $1 billion, 1.7 million-square-foot factory, where the company will make Lego bricks and package the building-block kits. (BizSense file)
The facility is expected to be completed and operational in 2025. Chesterfield received from Lego a building permit tied to the Meadowville campus’s main factory and office building in November, according to online records.
Lego held a ceremonial ground-breaking event in April 2023 to commemorate the upcoming manufacturing plant, and fittingly had on display at the event a scale-model of the future factory made of about 34,000 Lego bricks.
Lego, in coordination with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, as well as local and state officials, announced its plans to build a $1 billion manufacturing facility in Meadowville Technology Park in June 2022.
Lego’s Chesterfield campus at Meadowville is expected to involve 13 buildings that include facilities for molding, packing and processing, as well as office and warehouse space, according to a recent company news release.
The future plant will handle the production of Lego bricks as well as packaging kits. The temporary packing facility is expected to cease operations once the manufacturing facility is operational.
The planned Chesterfield plant is expected to be Lego’s second factory in North America, joining a plant in Mexico. Lego expects it will have seven manufacturing plants worldwide once the Chesterfield plant is operational.
In late November, Lego announced it awarded $1 million in grants to six nonprofits in the greater Richmond area. Those beneficiaries were Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Richmond, James River Association, YMCA of Greater Richmond, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Soar 365 and Blue Sky Fund.
Lego Group has set up a temporary packaging facility at 1600 Ruffin Mill Road in Chesterfield. (Courtesy Lego Group)
With a $1 billion manufacturing plant still in the offing in Chesterfield, Lego Group recently kicked off operations at a temporary product packaging facility elsewhere in the county.
The Danish toymaker is now up and running at 1600 Ruffin Mill Road, where it leases a 264,000-square-foot warehouse that handles the packaging of the company’s building-block kits.
The temporary center is a precursor to Lego’s plans to open a 1.7 million-square-foot manufacturing plant in the nearby Meadowville Technology Park.
The opening of the packaging facility also comes as Chesterfield provides clearer insight into incentives tied to the overall Lego project with a recent amendment to its existing grant agreement regarding the company’s efforts in the county.
In the interim, the Ruffin Mill Road facility helps meet Lego’s packaging needs and supports the company’s operations across North and South America.
“Our new external packing facility plays an important role in meeting consumer demand in the Americas region,” a Lego spokesperson said in a prepared statement. “We are enthusiastic about our progress (in 2023) and look forward to the construction of a state-of-the-art factory.”
Workers at the temporary facility sort and bag Lego pieces into the small bags one finds inside Lego kit boxes in a step referred to as pre-packing. Next up, those baggies of Lego pieces are sorted into the appropriate Lego kit boxes. Once the kits are completed, the center then packs them into larger shipping boxes and transfers them to a distribution center, where the kits then land on retailers’ shelves.
The packaging facility became fully operational in November, ahead of a previously shared timeline that anticipated the temporary facility would be open in 2024.
Lego had hired and onboarded 200 employees for the packaging facility as of late December, according to the company spokesperson. It previously said it plans to ultimately have 500 people working at the temporary center.
Folks working at the temporary facility are included in Lego’s hiring goals for its larger Chesterfield plant, and are expected to move into the new facility once it’s operational. The company plans to hire 1,760 people for the permanent Chesterfield manufacturing facility over a 10-year period.
The Chesterfield Board of Supervisors in December voted to approve an amendment to the county’s existing performance grant agreement with Lego to further spell out incentives tied to the operation of the temporary facility.
According to a staff memo, while the facility was included in the original agreement, there was a need to delineate tax incentives related to the temporary center, and the amendment “clarifies the intended incentive coverage” of the center.
The amendment adds in language that states that, so long as Lego continuously operates the temporary facility at Ruffin Mill Road until it gets a certificate of occupancy for the Meadowville plant, the company gets to retain 100 percent of the annual business license tax imposed on the Ruffin Mill site or until the company is deemed exempt from the tax, whichever happens first. Also teed up for Lego is 100 percent of the business personal property taxes levied on the Ruffin Mill Road center subject to the same requirements.
The grant agreement, which was first approved by the board in June 2022, is conditioned on Lego locating its manufacturing facility in Chesterfield, and includes further annual grant awards that start when a certificate of occupancy is issued for the Meadowville manufacturing plant.
The grant amount for the manufacturing facility is planned to be 50 percent of the marginal increase in real estate taxes paid by Lego for the first 15 years of operations at the factory, 25 percent of the marginal tax increase for years 16 to 20 and 100 percent of the taxes on the plant’s planned solar facilities which aren’t otherwise tax exempt under state law, according to a staff report.
The state agreed to provide Chesterfield with $19 million to build the facility’s pad-site infrastructure, per the June 2022 memo.
Separately, a grant agreement between Lego and the state of Virginia would award up to $56 million in grant funding between July 2027 and July 2035 if the company meets factory investment and hiring goals.
Work is underway on Lego’s upcoming factory, which is situated on a company-owned, 340-acre property at 1400 Meadowville Road.
A rendering of Lego’s planned $1 billion, 1.7 million-square-foot factory, where the company will make Lego bricks and package the building-block kits. (BizSense file)
The facility is expected to be completed and operational in 2025. Chesterfield received from Lego a building permit tied to the Meadowville campus’s main factory and office building in November, according to online records.
Lego held a ceremonial ground-breaking event in April 2023 to commemorate the upcoming manufacturing plant, and fittingly had on display at the event a scale-model of the future factory made of about 34,000 Lego bricks.
Lego, in coordination with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, as well as local and state officials, announced its plans to build a $1 billion manufacturing facility in Meadowville Technology Park in June 2022.
Lego’s Chesterfield campus at Meadowville is expected to involve 13 buildings that include facilities for molding, packing and processing, as well as office and warehouse space, according to a recent company news release.
The future plant will handle the production of Lego bricks as well as packaging kits. The temporary packing facility is expected to cease operations once the manufacturing facility is operational.
The planned Chesterfield plant is expected to be Lego’s second factory in North America, joining a plant in Mexico. Lego expects it will have seven manufacturing plants worldwide once the Chesterfield plant is operational.
In late November, Lego announced it awarded $1 million in grants to six nonprofits in the greater Richmond area. Those beneficiaries were Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Richmond, James River Association, YMCA of Greater Richmond, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Soar 365 and Blue Sky Fund.
At first glance I could see how this would create lots of employment for people Chesterfield and surrounding counties but then you read on to were they are tax exempt and the companies they are alloting money too are in Richmond. So my question is how Lego helping Chesterfield?