NEW ELLENTON, S.C. - Global Containment Systems, a new subsidiary of a leading air-filter maker, expects to create 800 jobs and invest $60 million in the next five years after it builds its headquarters near the Savannah River Site, company officials said Wednesday.

The division of St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Flanders Corp. will make glove boxes, equipment used to contain toxic materials while allowing workers to handle them using gloves built into the box.

Between 350 and 400 workers will be hired initially for engineering, welding, machinery and other jobs. The average pay for similar Flanders plants ranges from $12 to $14 an hour, company president Steven Clark said.

The company plans to complete the building, at state Highway 19 and U.S. Highway 278, before the end of 2005.

"We will be within a stone's throw of the Savannah River Site, and we believe there are significant projects to take place at the Savannah River Site over the next couple of years," Clark said.

Gov. Mark Sanford said the company's presence furthers the development of economic clusters in South Carolina, as well as create jobs next to Barnwell County, where unemployment is at 10 percent.

"At times, we've taken Savannah River Site for granted in this state," Sanford said. "At times, we've even pushed against it, if you want to call it that, as a state. And I think that y'all's presence here ... says again to folks across the state how incredibly important this facility is."

Much of the company's promise of 800 jobs is staked on when the federal government begins construction on a facility that would convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.

Global Containment Systems would employ 400 or 500 people without the construction of the mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel facility, Clark said.

A federal spending bill includes $300 million in funding for the project, but construction has been delayed since last spring.

Some products used at SRS and particularly at a MOX facility require onsite construction, making it advantageous not to have parts moving up and down the interstate, Clark said.

SRS won't be the only place the company sells it products, Clark said. With the growth of the nuclear containment industry, Global Containment Systems would have been built somewhere, he said.

The plant will be built just outside New Ellenton, a town formed 54 years ago when it and half a dozen others were forced to move to make room for the former nuclear weapons plant.

"That was our milestone then," said Mayor Jim Sutherland. "This is our biggest milestone since then."

The announcement comes on the heels of last week's news that a joint venture between Vought Aircraft Industries Inc. and Italy's Alenia Aeronautica will create more than 600 jobs in South Carolina's Lowcountry. The companies will build a $560 million aircraft complex to make fuselage sections for Boeing's new 7E7 Dreamliner at Charleston International Airport.

Gov. Sanford "moved from one side of the state to the other," said state Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken. "And I think what will happen is there will be some fill-in in between."