Adac Automotive Inc. has broken ground on a new 8-acre corporate campus in Cascade Township, Mich., near Grand Rapids.
The Tier 1 automotive supplier, which manufactures exterior and interior door handles with integrated electronics, exterior trim and exterior mirrors, announced June 7 that it was investing more than $20 million in the project, which is expected to be completed in June 2019.
The corporate campus will consist of a 56,000-square-foot office building to house 175 employees, including administrative and engineering staff. In addition, Adac's 15,000-square-foot innovation center — adjacent to the new corporate headquarters on Eagle Drive — is getting a 24,000-square-foot expansion for product development, validation and laboratory testing.
The company is also consolidating operations at four of its facilities in the southeast Grand Rapids area into the corporate campus. This includes current headquarters on Tahoe Drive, an engineering and design center on Eagle Drive and its 36th Street facility, all of which will be put up for sale, the company said.
The fourth one is what the company calls "Eagle East," the innovation center that is getting the 24,000-square-foot addition and "tripling in size," Jeff Dolbee, Adac's chief financial officer, said in a June 11 phone interview.
The validation and laboratory testing operations from the 36th Street facility will move to the innovation center, he said, while service work will go into the company's production facility in Saranac, Mich.
"It's bringing a lot of people together in the same building in terms of the corporate headquarters, bringing several groups that are now in disparate facilities into one," Dolbee said. "[We're] modernizing our facilities, creating a more collaborative work environment."
Dolbee said the new corporate campus will also serve as a recruiting tool to attract and retain workers. Over the next three years, Adac plans to hire an additional 50 workers for high-tech positions, such as electrical engineers and production engineers, specifically in the electronics area.
Adac ranks No. 40 in Plastics News' annual listing of North American injection molders, with estimated injection molding sales of $238 million in 2017.
The company's components go into a number of global vehicle platforms, predominantly in the SUV and truck market, he said.
"We've expanded our capability in terms of what we integrate into our products as well, so that's the reason why we have those programs," Dolbee said.
The company's components are on Ford Motor Co.'s F-Series trucks as well as General Motor Co.'s full-size truck and large SUV program, which includes the 2019 Silverado and GMC Sierra Denali pickup trucks.
