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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMWI Animal Health plans to move its animal product distribution facility from Whitestown to Zionsville and spend $5.8 million to expand its operations by January 2021.
The Idaho-based veterinary and agricultural animal health products supplier has occupied a 70,000-square-foot building at 3890 Perry Boulevard in Whitestown for nearly a decade. Now, the company is looking to relocate its 125 employees to 146,000 square feet in a 190,000-square-foot building at 5025 S. State Road 267.
Tom Wakefield, director of operations for the company, said the move to bigger facilities will allow MWI hire an additional 51 employees over the next 10 years.
“We looked in Whitestown, Plainfield, Indianapolis and Zionsville,” Wakefield said. “The building we are moving into is a stone’s throw away from our current building, which was a very low impact for our current employee base. That was very important to us.”
Wakefield said, at nearly $18 an hour, MWI jobs pay roughly $4 more than comparable jobs in the area.
New logistical distribution and information technology equipment will be installed in the new facility before the year is out, and work there should begin by the end of January.
The Zionsville Town Council unanimously approved a 10-year, personal property tax abatement for the company this week worth $164,000. Joshua Garrett, the council’s president, asked whether MWI Animal Health planned to leave after 10 years.
“The beautiful part of the building we’re moving into is, we’ve got a right of first refusal on an additional 45,000 square feet,” Wakefield said. “If I were to move my building today, I would go from—in essence—95% full to about 60% full. We should be good for probably, boy, 15 years at a minimum.”
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