Janesville, Wis.-based Prent Corp. will invest $12.5 million to open a new, 62,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in Santa Teresa, N.M., to double its capacity in the next five years.
The new location will create 85 new jobs with an expected average full-time wage of $26.14 and a part-time wage of $15.75, an Oct. 8 news release by the state's economic development department said.
The state of New Mexico will support Prent's move into the new location, it said, with $500,000 in economic assistance from its Local Economic Development Act fund, a job creation or closing fund.
"Prent is also receiving economic assistance from Doña Ana County with a proposed IRB ordinance that goes to public hearings in the coming weeks," the release said.
Operations at the new location are expected to begin in the fall of 2021, with construction to start as soon as approvals are in place, it said.
"Like other Prent sites, the facility will be ISO 13485-certified, have a Class 8-certified clean room and utilize the same Prent-designed and -built thermoformers used globally," the release said.
The sterile barrier packaging produced by Prent for medical devices requires the facility to pass an audit by its customers, it added. "Passing the audit offers Prent more supply chain certainty because the industry has high regulatory barriers for any new competition."
The new manufacturing facility will give the company a total of 11 sites.
"For over three years we've worked closely with partners in the region to make this a reality," Mark Rothlisberger, senior vice president of manufacturing for Prent, said in the release. "Over and over, we heard that the strength of the region is its collaboration across borders. Today's announcement is a vindication of that model, one integrated region working together towards success."
Prent ranks No. 17 in Plastics News' current survey of North American thermoformers, with estimated annual sales of $175 million.