Magpul to Start New Year with Opening of Local Plant

A company that makes ammunition magazines and other gun accessories will open its manufacturing and distribution center next month in the Capital City.

Magpul Industries officials vowed to move the company’s operations out of Erie, Colorado, after that state passed gun control laws in 2013.

Its new manufacturing and distribution center will be located at 7201 Commerce Circle, part of the Cheyenne Business Parkway in the east part of Cheyenne.

The transition will start Jan. 12.

The company’s corporate headquarters has already moved from Colorado to Austin.

“These new facilities in Texas and Wyoming immediately will enhance and expand the company’s business operations,” said Duane Liptak, Magpul’s director of product management and marketing, in a news release.

Magpul will occupy the building in the Business Parkway that Jeld-Wen once used. That company made doors and windows until it closed in 2011.

A 50,000-square-foot addition to the 140,000- square-foot building will be finished this month.

The total cost of the building is about $9.5 million. Laramie County will pay $8.3 million, which it got through a grant from the Wyoming Business Council. Cheyenne LEADS will provide another $1.2 million to make up the gap.

Cheyenne LEADS will manage it, Anja Bendel, director of business development at Cheyenne LEADS, said Monday. LEADS is a not-for-profit, privately owned organization that serves as the economic development arm of Laramie County.

Magpul will lease the building from Cheyenne LEADS. The manufacturing company will not have any lease payments for the first five years.

After that, Magpul will provide about $7.1 million in lease payments over the remaining 10 years of the contract, Bendel said.

About $3.7 million will go back to the Wyoming Business Council for future business development grants. The rest will go to Cheyenne LEADS for economic development needs like buying land.

Magpul will bring a new dimension to manufacturing capabilities in Cheyenne, Bendel said. The diversity is with the injection molding process. There is only one other injection molding facility in Wyoming, she said.

Magpul’s Liptak could not be reached Monday to discuss how many employees will be hired. But the company has started local hiring, Bendel said.

“They have hired a handful of people who presently live in Cheyenne,” she said, noting those people commute to the Erie facility for training.

“Once it opens, they will be ready to hit the ground running here,” she said.

Magpul Industries will close its Colorado facilities during the first quarter of 2015, the company announced Friday.

“Magpul will open a single administrative location in Colorado to support the relocation,” the company announced. The new site will become a regional support office.