A Wayne County manufacturer has broken ground on a major expansion project in the Village of Newark.
IEC Electronics, which does contract manufacturing, is building a new plant, a couple of miles away from its current plant, because it needs more space to expand.
The company first announced last year it would create up to 362 jobs. IEC’s President and CEO Jeff Schlarbaum says that now, they have already added 175 of those positions over the last 18 months.
Governor Andrew Cuomo says the project also will help retain 463 other positions.
He says that IEC is involved in making products for a number of industries that require high-performance for their technology.
“Aerospace and defense applications where we’re building advanced electronics for national security interests; we’re building medical devices, life-saving medical device products, and even in the industrial sector, we’re building electronics for applications such as wafer fabrications for integrated circuits,” Schlarbaum told WXXI News.
The total project cost is about $22 million. Empire State Development is providing up to $2 million through a Finger Lakes Forward Upstate Revitalization Initiative Grant and up to $3 million through the Excelsior Jobs Program in exchange for job creation commitments.
Schlarbaum says that IEC did consider other locations for expansion both in and out of New York State, but ultimately decided to stay in Wayne County. He says that IEC will be staying within the Village of Newark.
“So, what we’re doing is, we’re moving two-and-a-half miles south to an industrial park, the Silver Hill Technology Park, where there’s plenty of room for expansion and we’ll be able to build a state of the art facility that we design from the ground up,” Schlarbaum said.
The new building is expected to be completed next spring, with IEC moving into the facility soon after that.
