Construction workers are moving forward on a new million, 20,000-square-foot production center and warehouse at the ICL Performance Products plant at 440 N. Ninth St. in North Lawrence. The new facility, expected to be operational early next year, produces a food product used in the leavening process for companies that make doughs.

The framework already is up for a $5 million expansion at a chemicals plant in North Lawrence.

Management for ICL Performance Products, 440 N. Ninth St., plans to have the new facility running in early 2009 to produce a food product used in the leavening process.

“It does include a lot of upgrades to the way we’ve done things in the past. It’s state of the art,” said plant manager Phil Brown.

When it’s finished, it will be a four-story building with 5,000 square feet on each floor and home to a production center and warehouse for producing the chemical and food product for companies that make doughs.

Cindy Brewer, ICL’s food business director, says the food production industry is subject to scrutiny because customers want to know what they buy is safe. Food products that are baked must have a certain reaction rate, which could be different for frozen dough, for instance, compared to refrigerated crescent rolls.

“It’s going to be a state-of-the-art facility that will have compliance with all the ever-changing food regulations,” Brewer said.

Brown said company officials solicited input from trade organizations and major customers to help plan the new building and production center.

He said the plant added a few jobs in the last year. For the new facility, leaders will reorganize existing staff because it will take four people to operate the production center.

But ICL has budgeted to add employees next year at the entire plant, which currently has 110 hourly employees and 61 on salary, Brown said.

Recently, contractors have worked on putting equipment into the new building and hope to soon enclose it with siding.

Several Kansas companies are involved in construction. P1 Group Inc. is the mechanical and electrical contractor, and Horizon Systems Inc. has supplied storage bins that will hold the product before packaging.