With the first piece of its $17.7  million expansion recently completed,  Kemin Industries Inc. will soon begin another project – but not the one the company had first anticipated.

At the end of last year, Kemin put  the finishing touches on a 9,000- square-foot addition to its laboratory building, a project that began earlier in  2006. Now the company is making plans for expanding its manufacturing area to keep pace with a growing demand for products.

“We had planned to do our administration  building next, but based on prioritization, I think that manufacturing expansion is going to need to come first,” said Kerty Levy, vice president of Kemin Industries.

Kemin’s East Side campus manufactures products for all five of the company’s  divisions: food ingredient, pet food  ingredient, agrifood, nutraceuticals and  pharmaceuticals. Kemin has additional  manufacturing sites in Asia, Europe,  South America and Africa.

The $2.2 million laboratory expansion  consisted of the addition on the  west end of the existing lab building  and remodeled labs and work space for  researchers and support staff. By  removing scientists’ desks from various  labs and grouping them together in an  open area in the new addition, it  opened up valuable space, according  to Terri St. Peter, a project manager  with Kemin Health who coordinated  the expansion.

“We recovered 30 percent of our lab  space, which is what we had hoped to  do, which allowed us to add more  equipment,” St. Peter said. St.Peter said the new arrangement of workstations also has other benefits. “It allows for better cross-communication between the different divisions rather than having the scientists segregated in their own labs like before,” she said.

Levy said Kemin has used similar design principles in some of its other offices and been pleased with the results.

In late 2005, the Iowa Department  of Economic Development, the city of  Des Moines, Des Moines Area Community  College and Polk County approved  economic development incentives to  aid Kemin in its expansion. Those  incentives included a $800,000 tax  abatement and a $280,000 forgivable  loan from the city. In return, Kemin  pledged to create 40 new high-paying  jobs by 2010.

Levy said Kemin has already hired 16  new workers, putting it ahead of pace  to reach its goal and exceed it. She said  there is available space in the lab building for about 15 more employees.

“We have a lot of anticipated growth  in all areas,” Levy said. “It’s an exciting time for the company.”