Cary’s largest company expanding facilities
Sage Products, a medical products manufacturing company, is expanding their plant in Cary. Already the 7th largest employer in McHenry County, according to the McHenry County Economic Development Corporation, the plant will soon hire more employees and increase their building size by approximately 160,000 square feet of floor space, bringing the total facility from 365,000 up to more than 525,000 square feet, Sage COO Scott Brown said.
“It’s something we’ve been looking at for the last several years,” Brown said. “We’ve looked forward to this day, that we would get to this point.”
Sage has existed in its current facility since 2000. They make patient hygiene-related products, which help those who are on ventilators, undergoing surgery or immobilized from developing complications.
The expansion will provide the company with more warehousing space for raw materials and finished goods and increase their production facilities. Sage currently produces five product lines.
Unlike many companies reporting losses during the economic recession, Sage’s business has actually been growing.
“Business has been very good,” Brown said. “The health care business has been prospering pretty well as an industry, particularly in our area [preventative medical products].”
According to Brown, Sage has seen sales double-digit percentage increases over the last five years.
“We spent more in capital expenditures than we ever have in our history,” Brown said. “Especially within the building, we’ve invested more than ever before.”
Sage’s workforce will be expanding concurrently with their new building.
The company has hired about 20 new people each year since moving operations from Crystal Lake to Cary, and will do the same in 2010, Brown said. Sage currently employs more than 550 people. The company was recently ranked No. 5 in Modern Healthcare’s 2009 list of the 100 best places to work in health care.
They have presented expansion plans to the Village of Cary, and are currently meeting with architects, but haven’t gone through the bidding process, according to Mike Nygren, director of marketing communications at Sage.
“We hope to have a shovel in the ground before the first of the year [2010],” Brown said. “It’ll probably take us nine or 10 months.” The company has owned the property where the expansion will be built since 2000.
Village of Cary administrator Cameron Davis equated the expansion space to a couple hundred semi-trailer trucks. Sage’s expansion plans are no small bit of good news for Cary—Sage is the largest property tax payer in the community.
“We’re thrilled. They’re a great corporate partner, and very professional,” Davis said. “So few corporations are expanding. It’s a nice twist on what’s going on.”
—By Michelle Stoffel, Triblocal.com reporter; photo submitted by Sage Products
