Business growth does not always come easy. For some companies it can take years of planning and reworking that plan many times over.
Nosco Inc., a packaging provider for the pharmaceutical and personal care industries, has wanted to relocate to Wisconsin since 2015. Headquartered in Gurnee, Ill., the company wanted to grow its business. It was running out of space and desperately needed to consolidate operations into one location.
At one point, Nosco, a subsidiary of Holden Industries Inc., considered buying land and building its own facility. But it has finally made the move to a 172,279-square-foot facility in Pleasant Prairie’s LakeView Corporate Park, 11200 88th Ave. It has a long-term lease, made renovations, invested in new equipment and is looking to be in the facility later this spring and in full operation by June. The site also will house Nosco’s graphic services, solutions engineering and administrative staffs. Its facilities in Gurnee and Bridgeview, Ill., will remain open, but the company will close its Waukegan location.
Nosco, which serves 400 customers in the healthcare industry, expects to have nearly 300 employees in the new facility. Company President Craig Curran said 80% of its production is for the healthcare industry. It also makes test kits and some products related to COVID-19.
“It’s a three-month process to move all equipment and 275 employees into the building,” Curran said.
“We really needed to consolidate and get into one large building,” Curran said. “Nosco is growing and this move allows us the room to support our healthcare customers. This was set up nicely for manufacturing.
“We’ve been talking about this since 2015; this is a significant improvement,” Curran said. “We’re adding more equipment and will be more efficient.”
Help from KABA
Curran credits the Kenosha Area Business Alliance for helping the company make the move. He said Nosco began working with KABA in 2019. After 14 months of further planning, they settled on the Pleasant Prairie site. He also said the company worked out the lease details with Tom Boyle, a principal with Lee & Associates, a commercial real estate firm.
Curran said that KABA was a good matchmaker that helped facilitate the various aspects of the move. Nosco not only needed a larger facility, but also one that was conveniently located in the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor with close proximity to I-94. The Lakeview Corporate Park was the perfect location both for its logistics needs and for employees who life in northern Illinois and in Wisconsin.
“We have a lot of employees who live in Kenosha County. A lot live five to 10 minutes away,” Curran said.
Read more in the Kenosha News.