The world’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is now 98,500 square feet larger.And that expansion — the most visible part of an ongoing $147 million investment by Pfizer Inc. — is a very good thing for Portage and Kalamazoo County, local leaders say.
“It’s important because it shows us long-term that Pfizer plans to be here for a long time,” said Portage Mayor Patricia Randall.
Portage City Manager Larry Shaffer agreed, saying, “Having Pfizer commit to the city of Portage is absolutely critical for our long-term viability. So it’s not only the taxpayers that benefit by having a large corporate partner like Pfizer support our schools and support our public services, but it’s all the employees and their families that benefit.”
Pfizer’s Global Manufacturing operation, a complex at 7000 Portage Road that already included about 4 million square feet of production and office space, is now 98,500 square feet larger.
Pfizer’s new Building 541 in Portage Michigan
It has been expanded to accommodate a new warehousing and distribution operation that has the capacity to accept more raw materials and handle 60 percent more finished pharmaceutical products than the previous operation. It is about $30 million of the $147 million expansion project, according to Daniel Roth, team leader for project engineering at Pfizer.
The not-yet-completed balance of the project is a 10,000-square-foot asceptic processing center that is being built inside the plant. It will allow Pfizer to produce Act-O-Vials, the drug maker’s small portable devices that allow paramedics and medical staffers to quickly inject patients with life-saving medicines.
Pfizer planning multi-million dollar expansion at Portage manufacturing complex
Pfizer Inc. plans a $145 million expansion of its Portage manufacturing plant within two years, part of what could be more than an $800 million investment the next 10 to 12 years.
Pfizer Inc. is looking to fill 200 new positions in Portage
The jobs are related to work that is ongoing at the pharmaceutical manufacturing plant as well as the expansion it announced in 2016.
Civic leaders and reporters were allowed to tour the new warehousing facility on Tuesday morning. Attached to the north side of the Portage Road manufacturing complex, it replaces a similar-size warehouse space inside the plant that had much less capacity.
The new, modern area allows the company to handle up to 9,500 pallets of finished or work-in-progress pharmaceutical products. It has 65-foot high ceilings (versus the 28-foot ceilings of the previous area), two cold storage rooms capable of storing 1,000 pallets, and a floor that is so perfectly flat (in order to keep high-rising pallet-handling vehicles steady) that it recently won an award.
By March, the warehouse is expected to be in operation 24 hours a day, seven days per week. It will be the work place of about 36 Pfizer employees.
