Injection molder Maca Plastics Inc. is moving all operations from its 25,000-square-foot facility in Winchester, Ohio, to a 122,600-square-foot facility in Maysville, Ky.
The company, which molds and assembles various components for the medical and automotive industries, first started seeking funding to expand operations at its Winchester facility in early 2015, but was denied a loan by the U.S. Small Business Administration in late 2016, Maca Plastics' CEO Andrew Culbertson said in a Feb. 14. email interview.
An additional request for capital funding from a local bank in Adams County was also denied because the company "needed funds that exceeded their federal lending limits," he added.
"We had only one choice left and that was to approach one of the bigger regional banks that has SBA expertise," Culbertson said. "Basically, we got stuck between the cracks with not being acceptable to regional SBA lenders, [but] … the growth was too big for the local banks to finance under federal regulations."
With help from the Buffalo Trace Area Development District, a regional planning and development organization in Maysville, Ky., Culbertson found a vacant facility as well as the necessary funding.
"The Maysville-Mason County Industrial Development Authority was able to coordinate with four of the local Maysville banks. They crafted the proposal and closed the deal in just 30 days record time," he said.
In January 2017, the company began a complete remodel of the Maysville facility, which was previously occupied by auto supplier TechnoTrim Inc. Molding and assembly operations started up in April.
Maca Plastics has already moved 13 Milacron injection molding machines, ranging from 110-550 tons, to the new facility and in total will move 120 molding machines feeding five separate assembly lines by the end of February.
The total investment budget for the entire project is estimated at $7.9 million.
"This included the cost of training the new employees, purchase and remodeling costs of the facility and capital equipment. We will have about 60,000 square feet of remodeled manufacturing space that we can grow and expand into over the next five years," he said.
Once the move to the Maysville facility is complete, there will be 60 employees covering three shifts, with a few additional job openings on each shift to fill, Culbertson said.
"At this time, we believe we will only lose four of our current employees who would extend their drive times to over an hour," he added. "As an incentive, all of our current entry-level employees who were earning below $12 an hour were offered a 10 percent increase to work at our Maysville facility."
The Maysville facility is located about 30 miles southwest of Winchester. Maca Plastics has been in Ohio since 1995. Culbertson said the decision to move operations out of his home county was a difficult one, but growth in 2016-17 fueled the expansion to Maysville.
"Our growth in 2016-2017 … was forcing us to use 8,000 square feet [of] off-site warehousing, with on-site containers and semitrailers scattered in our parking lots," he said of the Winchester facility.
The company has been molding and assembling license plate light assemblies for the Honda Civic and Accord since 1996. Maca Plastics ranks No. 420 in the annual survey of North American injection molders by Plastics News. The company reported sales of $5.2 million for 2016.
