Wrap Technologies, a manufacturer of defense and public safety tech products, is relocating to a facility that will be built at the Project Intersection industrial site in Norton and will create 126 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Friday.
The $4.1 million, 20,000-square-foot facility will be the central hub for the company’s manufacturing and distribution operations.
“As Wrap Technologies brings its operations to Virginia and creates more than 120 jobs, we are reaffirming the Commonwealth’s leadership in technology and innovation,” Youngkin said in a news release. “This expansion further accelerates our efforts to develop key technology hubs in the region.”
The company is moving from its current operations in Tempe, Arizona, according to Duane Miller, executive director of the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission. Local and state officials from a number of agencies have been working on the project for about two years, he added.
Construction of the facility is expected to start in about 30 days and take 11 months to complete. In the meantime, the company will work temporarily out of the Lonesome Pine Technology Park just outside Wise, Miller said.
Jared Novick, Wrap’s chief operating officer, said Friday that the move to Southwest Virginia is “coming at a time in our company where we realize we want to be closely aligned with the state to sell our BolaWrap product” — a remote restraint device — “but also expand more of the public safety.
“Gov. Youngkin and his team have made it very clear that they understand the technology and would like to support us,” he said. “We also know that we’re interested in bringing manufacturing into a made-in-America initiative, and given the local contacts we had, we felt like it was the right time to do it in our company. We’re transforming our company right now.”
The expansion will support the development of artificial intelligence and virtual reality training platforms, body camera systems and planned advanced drone technologies designed for safer law enforcement practices, according to the news release. Wrap already partners with more than 40 agencies in Virginia, the release states.
In addition to LENOWISCO, the agencies that worked on the project were the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority, InvestSWVA, the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority and the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission.
VCEDA approved a $3.16 million loan to the Norton Industrial Development Authority to assist with construction of the facility.
The governor approved a $425,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to help with the project, and the tobacco commission awarded an $800,000 grant through its Southwest Economic Development program, the release states.
Wrap Technologies will be the second industry to locate at Project Intersection, a 200-acre industrial park developed on former coal mining property that was improved using $25 million in grants that included Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization, or AMLER, funding. The first, an EarthLink call center, opened in August.
