Worcester Ceramics Co. Expanding
This story was updated at 6:14 p.m.
PremaTech Advanced Ceramics has purchased a 26,900-square-foot building at the Worcester Airport Industrial Park for $1.45 million and plans to nearly double its employee count to 85 over the next five years.
The company expects to move across the street from a 12,000-square-foot building it is leasing at 2 Coppage Dr. to its new home, 160 Goddard Memorial Dr., by December, according to PremaTech President Mona Pappafava-Ray.
Pappafava-Ray said the company expects to spend more than $1 million transforming the warehouse space into a manufacturing facility.
She said the company had been looking for a new location in the Worcester area for several years, in preparation for the expiration of its current lease in December. She said it had actually considered and rejected the new location once, thinking it would be too expensive to renovate. After speaking with agents Don Mancini and James Umphrey of Worcester real estate broker Kelleher & Sadowsky Associates Inc., however, she said PremaTech decided to choose the building after all.
Pappafava-Ray said it was important to the company, which is a division of Pittsburgh-based PremaTech LLC, to stay in the local area so employees wouldn't lose their jobs.
"Our employees mean a lot to us, and they're the reason we're so successful," she said.
PremaTech purchased the building from 239 Mill Street Realty LLC and will lease the land beneath the building from the Worcester Regional Airport Commission for a nominal fee. The building was previously a distribution facilty for O'Coin's, a retailer of home goods.
The company received a $1.6 million bond from T.D. Bank through the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency to support the purchase and renovation of the building. Adam Bickelman, a spokesman for MassDevelopment, said the tax-exempt bonds typically allow borrowers to save 1.5 to 2 percent annually. He said the bonds don't cost the state anything.
"It's the federal government that's willing to forego the taxes," he said.
Tim McGourthy, Worcester economic development director, said the city is in discussions with PremeTech for some form of tax abatement.
Pappafava-Ray said city-boosting organization Choose Worcester brought together representatives of National Grid, the airport commission and MassDevelopment to help plan the move, and she was impressed with how quickly the agencies and the bank got the approvals the company needed.
"They completely understood what a business owner needs to stay in the area, and they made it easy for us to stay here," she said.
Worcester Commercial Properties represented the seller in the transaction.
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