AIT Laboratories announced Thursday morning that it plans to create as many as 160 jobs by 2014 and move its corporate headquarters to the northwest side.

The Indianapolis-based forensics, clinical and pharmaceutical testing firm plans to invest $74 million to acquire and equip an existing 90,000-square-foot building in Woodland Corporate Park near West 79th Street and Interstate 465.

“AIT continues to be a leader in the life sciences industry, and due to our tremendous growth over the past three years, we have quickly outgrown our current location on the city's southwest side,” company President and CEO Michael A. Evans said in a prepared statement.

AIT also plans to build a toxicology lab adjacent to its new headquarters. Its clients range from law enforcement agencies to physicians.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered AIT up to $1.8 million in performance-based tax credits. The city of Indianapolis and Develop Indy will assist the company's expansion by providing tax increment financing.

The company is on a roll.

AIT in December awarded $1 million in bonus money to employees, which brought their total take in profit sharing in 2009 to an impressive $3 million.

The company began doling out profit-sharing bonuses to its workers in 2007, but that was the first time they received two bonuses in the same year.

Evans gave employees $2 million last June in a surprise mid-year bonus. The following month he transferred full ownership of the company to employees as part of an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP.

AIT last year added more than 170 employees, bringing its nationwide work force to roughly 365, including 265 at its current Indianapolis headquarters near Indianapolis International Airport in Park Fletcher business park.

The company doubled its sales staff in 2009 and entered more than 15 new markets.

It currently has 475 employees nationwide.

The growth has helped AIT zoom up Inc. magazine's list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies.
 
Founded in 1990, the firm ranks 598th, up from 1,466 in 2008. The list, released most recently in August, is based on percentage growth in revenue.
 
According to newsletter Laboratory Economics, AIT posted sales of $34 million in 2008, an improvement from $16 million in 2007. The company last year said revenue should climb another 75 percent, to nearly $60 million, which would mark its sixth consecutive year of double-digit growth.