More Questions About Litebox
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 8:32AM | 6 Comments I was too polite about Litebox yesterday. No way this project is real. It could become a real project one day, and I hope it does, but the facts released to date don't lend credibility. In addition to the questions raised by the Indy Star and in our post yesterday, the project numbers just aren’t plausible.
Employee Density – 900 employees in 125,000 square feet, or 140 sq. ft. per employee. I looked back through our past projects and couldn’t find a project with even twice that density. The national average for manufacturing is over 500 sq. ft. Transportation equipment manufacturing is even higher due, in part, to the large size of the finished product. Each tractor-trailer is 500 sq. ft. This number isn’t in the ballpark of reality, which means the 125,000 sq. ft. building requirement isn’t a real requirement.
Construction Timeline – Begin construction in 60 days and be completed by late spring. A seven month process isn’t realistic with no architects, engineers, or contractors hired, and no site development or building permits issued. Litebox does not appear to have an established manufacturing process, which takes time and expertise to develop. And I don’t know about Indiana, but winter usually slows the construction process down a bit as well.
A plausible answer exists for each issue raised about Litebox, but not in the aggregate. Hopefully the company figures out the details and this ends up just being a premature press conference and public announcement.
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