Kelman Bottles LLC

A Shaler glass manufacture resurrected from bankruptcy in late 2005 is now back online and plans to make at least one regional acquisition with the next new months, according to its new owner.

Glenshaw Glass Co., dormant since September 2004, has been restarted by Pittsburgh businessman William Kelman, and since January, has been producing wine bottles for customers in the Northeast and Canada. The company also signed a distribution agreement this week with Vitro Packaging, a Monterrey, Mexico-based sheet and bottle glass distributor that sells to customers throughout North and South America.

Kelman, a native of Scotland who worked for Mellon Financial Corp. before becoming involved in real estate and manufacturing, said that reclaimed Glenshaw Glass now has 45 manufacturing employees and is producing 200 tins of glass per day, with just one of the plant’s four furnaces operating at full capacity.

Kelman, who also bought Mount Pleasant based L.E. Smith Glass Co., out of bankruptcy in early 2005, said he plans to make another local acquisition to boost production, but declined to identify the company.

In restarting Glenshaw, Kelman reclaimed a Pittsburgh manufacturing icon that was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy before it was knocked flat by Hurricane Ivan-related flooding in September 2004.

Kelman’s management company, Rust Belt Capital Management, purchased Glenshaw for $3.8 million in October 2005. At its peak, the company had a revenue of $100 million and was part of the glass empire of John Ghaznavi, who at one time was a majority owner of Glenshaw, Tampa Fla.-based Anchor Glass Corp. and Toronto-based Consumer’s Packaging Inc.

When Glenshaw went under the flood, the company, which made bottles for Lawrenceville-based Pittsburgh Brewing Co. and Pottsville, Montgomery County-based Yuengling Beer Co., cut 220 jobs. The company had previously laid off 120.

“We are very happy to see a number of those employees back to work, and we are hopeful as Bill starts to create some revenue out of this that he does have the capacity to start up a couple of the other furnaces,” said Allegheny County Department of Economic Development deputy director Bob Hurley.

Hurley said the county hasn’t aided Kelman, but would consider providing assistance if he adds another furnace. Kelman said three of Glenshaw’s furnaces are nonfunctioning and too old to rehabilitate. He estimated the cost of adding a new furnace to be between $5 million and $10 million.

Joe Cattaeno, president of the Alexandria, Va-based Glass Packaging Institute, a glass manufacture’s trade association, said smaller boutique wineries are driving demand for wine bottles manufactured in the U.S. Cattaeno said smaller wineries might find some advantages, including cheaper prices, working with smaller manufacturers like Glenshaw.

In addition to glass manufacturing, Kelman hopes for more of a mixed use for the 25-acre Glenshaw property situated next to Route 8. He’s formed a real estate company, Dufftown Real Estate, that is working to subdivide the acreage for use by other tenants. The site was already home to Agents of Change Recycling, a glass, metal, and paper recycling company.

Kelman has added another tenant, G.B.P. LLC, which provided warehouse services for a variety of industries.

Before the end of the year, Kelman said he’s like to open a retail store on the property that would sell bowls, glasses, and figurines made by L.E. Smith.

Shaler township Manager Tim Rogers described the Glenshaw restart as a “substantial” one, which will create tens of thousands of dollars in water sales for the township and help to invigorate a commercial district that he says was harmed by the glass company’s closure.

“We really didn’t believe that Glenshaw Glass was coming back,” Rogers said.

‘New Glenshaw Glass owner has expansion, regional acquisition plans.’