Houston Bus Bar Maker S+S Industries Plans a 55,080-Square-Foot Operation at Eastport Exchange in North Jacksonville, With a Start Targeted by Year-End

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A Houston company that plates copper and aluminum bus bars for data centers is preparing to open an operation in North Jacksonville, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. S+S Industries would occupy 55,080 square feet of a 132,265-square-foot building at Eastport Exchange, and the city is reviewing a build-out permit for an estimated $231,171 project. The developer says the site should start operating by the end of 2026, though the company itself was not ready to make a public announcement.

The article did not report how many jobs the Jacksonville site would create, and it did not mention any government incentives. Those missing details matter because the plan is, for now, based on a permit under review and comments from the building's developer.

The Key Facts at a Glance

The Daily Record places the building east of Eastport Road, south of Faye Road and south of Interstate 295, and east of Interstate 95 and Main Street. Trevor Berecz of InLight Real Estate Partners, the developer, said the Jacksonville site will be used to store, distribute and do light production of copper, bus bar and other electrical components. Kyle Fisher of CBRE represented S+S in the lease talks, and Superior Industrial Group Inc. and Michael Blake Architects LLC, both of Jacksonville, are the contractor and architect.

What a Bus Bar Is

A bus bar is a metal bar that carries large amounts of electricity inside electrical equipment such as switchgear, the gear that routes and protects power in a building or a data center. S+S says it makes and distributes copper and aluminum bus bars, and its services include plating, coating, fabrication, kitting, finishing and scrap recycling. The company's website lists proprietary plating lines, including Hyper Plate, a tin-on-aluminum process, and Power Plate, a silver-on-copper process.

Its customers are the manufacturers that supply power distribution equipment to large data center operators, according to a May 2026 announcement of the company's investment deal. The company describes itself in the Daily Record article as the "perfect partner for data centers and switchgear manufacturers." Data centers are building out quickly, and Northeast Florida has been debating how to handle them, with St. Johns County commissioners voting unanimously on Nov. 3 for a data center moratorium, according to the Daily Record.

A Family Company With New Investors

S+S was founded in 1977 as S&S Plating and took its current name in 2018, the Daily Record reported. It is a family business led by George Andrews as executive chairman and Gregory L. Andrews as chief executive. In May 2026, Cerberus Capital Management announced it would make a strategic investment in S+S, and the Daily Record reports the deal closed June 4.

Cerberus has about $70 billion in assets, according to the May announcement, and said the money would help S+S expand manufacturing capacity and strengthen operations as data center demand for electrical infrastructure grows. The Andrews family kept a significant ownership stake in the deal. Michael Buchbinder of Cerberus said the company is "well positioned to scale alongside" that demand.

Other S+S Expansion

The Jacksonville plan follows another recent expansion. In the first quarter of 2026, S+S opened a 67,000-square-foot distribution center in Surrey, British Columbia, according to the Daily Record. The company's website also lists a capacity of about 2 million pounds of bus bars a month, though other company materials describe larger expansion plans, so the figures vary by source.

What We Don't Know Yet

Several basic questions are still unanswered in the published reporting. The Daily Record did not say how many people S+S plans to employ in Jacksonville, whether the company is seeking local or state incentives, or when the city might approve the build-out permit. S+S told the Daily Record by email that it was not ready to make a public announcement. Jacksonville's permit records and any future announcement from the company are the places to watch for those details.