Property, Plant and Equipment, net

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2016

Property, Plant and Equipment [Abstract]

Property, plant and equipment consisted of the following:



	December 31,
(in thousands)	2016			2015
Land	$	32,127		$	28,698
Buildings and site improvements	183,882			171,890
Leasehold improvements	5,550			5,560
Machinery and equipment	248,861			232,560
	470,420			438,708
Less accumulated depreciation and amortization	(273,302		)	(257,115		)
	197,118			181,593
Capital projects in progress	35,692			32,123
	$	232,810		$	213,716

Included in property, plant and equipment at December 31, 2016 and 2015, are fully depreciated assets with an original cost of $166.7 million and $156.7 million, respectively. These fully depreciated assets are still in use in the Company’s operations.

The Company capitalizes certain development costs associated with internal use software, including external direct costs of materials and services and payroll costs for employees devoting time to a software project. As of December 31, 2016 and 2015, depreciable capitalized software development costs were $4.6 million and $1.6 million, respectively, and included in capital projects in progress at December 31, 2016 and 2015, were software in development costs of $13.5 million and $12.2 million, respectively. Costs incurred during the preliminary project stage, as well as costs for maintenance and training, are expensed as incurred.

Depreciation expense was $21.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 and $20.4 million for both of the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2014.

In December 2015, the Company purchased for $12.6 million a manufacturing facility in West Chicago for the purposes of combining the operations of its two leased chemical facilities into one owned facility. During 2016, the Company incurred $7.3 million in improvement costs to build out of the new facility. In 2016, the Company approved the expansion of the McKinney facility, which it estimates will cost $17.0 million to $19.0 million.