WAWAYANDA – Officials of the family-owned Medline Industries company, a major distributor of health products to hospitals, doctors’ offices, assisted living facilities, and hospice, has outgrown its current 500,000 square foot facility in the Town of Wawayanda and is hoping to win approvals to construct a 1.3 million square foot facility in the Town of Montgomery.
The town planning board will conduct a public hearing on the project’s environmental studies next Tuesday evening.
Medline, which has been in operation in Orange County for over a dozen years, would retain its current 320-person workforce and create another 380 new jobs over the next five years. It has a current annual payroll of $40 million.
The company is seeking a 10 to 15 year PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes), subject to approval by the Montgomery Industrial Development Agency. The 100-acre parcel, currently farmland, is paying $45,000 in property taxes. In the first year of the pilot, Medline would pay $800,000 annually and that would reach full assessment of $1.3 million per year by the last year of the PILOT, according to Dmity Dukhan, vice president for Real Estate Operations.
“We’re trying to find a way to help schools and others to dramatically increase community participation in the taxes we will be paying on this large facility,” Durkhan said. “It’s a 1.3 million square foot size.”
Only 33 of the 100 acres proposed would house the building.
Company officials note the current farm owner has purchased another 500 acres of adjacent land to increase his operations.
Among Medline’s most well-known products are Curad bandages, the Cuddle Up blankets newborns are wrapped in at hospitals, medical gloves and adult incontinence products.
Some controversy erupted earlier when three women claimed they were harassed while trying to raise questions at a village board meeting. An attorney representing them has filed a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court.
