A printing company based in Hauppauge in Suffolk County on Long Island plans to expand by building a new plant in Middletown while maintaining its existing operations. Poly Craft Industries has received approval from the city of Middletown Planning Board to build a new facility at 36-60 Industrial Place that will be used for printing laminated and nonlaminated plastic packaging materials.
In an application to the Middletown Industrial Development Agency (IDA), Poly Craft presented a project budget that showed $7,150,000 to acquire 6.4 acres of land that already has on it a 28,000-square-foot building. It showed that constructing a new 80,000-square-foot plant would cost $12,178,000, with an additional $6,000,000 allocated for equipment. Poly Craft said it anticipated using the existing building on the site as well as the new building in its printing business.
Poly Craft told the IDA that within two years of the project”™s completion it will have brought 120 jobs into the area. It anticipated that the average salary would be $65,000 with executives earing $104,000, printing press operators earning $58,240 and skilled factory workers earning $47,840.
The IDA was expected to approve sales tax exemptions of $543,084 for Poly Craft as well as a mortgage recording tax exemption of $187,649.
Maureen Halahan, president and CEO of the Orange County Partnership, welcomed the approval for Poly Craft to build.
“Poly Craft is a perfect example of the type of sector that we”™re trying to grow in Orange County,” Halahan said “Manufacturing projects such as this one will have long-term benefits beyond tax revenue, new jobs and investment. It will reinforce and bolster the growing innovation ecosystem in Orange County and the Hudson Valley.”
Middletown”™s Mayor Joseph DeStefano said, “Poly Craft will be a positive addition to the community. The new jobs, investment and tax rateables will benefit the city for years to come. We have a talented workforce, thriving downtown and desirable quality of life that makes Middletown a great location to locate a business.”
Reuben Buck of Engineering & Surveying Properties PC located in Washingtonville noted that the Middletown Planning Board last December approved construction of a 72,000-square-foot warehouse on the property and that what Poly Craft is proposing would essentially be a change of use for a previously approved project.
Buck pointed out that the plant would be equipped with an air-purifying unit to control the release of vapors from materials used in the printing process.
“All solvent vapors that are created during this process are going to be treated through a thermal oxidizer,” Buck said. “This unit, air purifying unit, is regulated by the DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation). It”™s located at the front of the building. We saw this as the most advantageous place to locate it as there are residences to the rear. The noise of the unit itself is not very loud. It”™s about as loud as an air conditioner.”
Buck said that Poly Craft was proposing landscaping at the rear of the property to shield residences from the new printing plant.
In its review of the proposal, the planning board determined that there would be no significant environmental effects from the project and issued a negative declaration of environmental impact.
