Italy’s IMA Group gets tax breaks for Tonawanda expansion, looks toward further growth

And they are already looking toward additional opportunities to bring more of the global company’s business to the Buffalo area.

“We are in a good industry, and we feel we can be successful and we can increase our presence here in Buffalo a little bit,” said Ernesto Renzi, president and director of sales for IMA Life North America. “It’s the people in production and engineering now that have made the difference. The skill and the working ethics of the people here in Western New York has been outstanding.”

That’s also why the Erie County Industrial Development Agency approved $3.2 million in tax savings for the company’s project.

“The town supports this project wholeheartedly,” said Town of Tonawanda Supervisor Joseph Emminger, an ECIDA board member. “It’s a great project. It’s a premier location within our town, and that site has been vacant.”

Bologna-based IMA, which makes freeze-drying equipment for the global pharmaceutical industry, is investing $27.6 million to build out a second manufacturing and office facility in Western New York. The company’s IMA Life North America, which already employs 154 workers in its existing Tonawanda facility on Military Road, plans to construct an 80,000-square-foot building on a 15-acre vacant parcel in the Colvin Woods Business Park.

Plans for the building at 700 Colvin Woods Parkway call for 30,000 square feet of office space and 50,000 square feet of production space. The new facility will include a development laboratory, three production bays and warehouse space for development, assembly, testing and shipping of freeze dryers.

“This one was a big milestone for us,” Renzi said. “From the beginning, we liked the idea of keeping our business here in the area, because we have so much skilled people that it would be very difficult to repeat the same thing, and it would take a lot of energy to do it someplace else. This space and this area will give us the latitude, which will be good for the future.” 

The facility also will feature corporate office space for IMA’s six other U.S. operations, located in Boston, Chicago, Pennsylvania and Missouri. The company employs 544 workers in the United States, out of 6,900 worldwide.

“It’s a little bit spread out now for the different divisions,” Renzi said. “What we are doing is trying to concentrate the headquarters for all the companies here.”

About 120 of the current employees in Tonawanda will relocate to the new facility upon completion by Montante Construction, with 34 remaining on Military Road. But IMA plans to hire another 30 full-time workers, for a total of 150, with average salaries of $82,705 for retained employees and $72,293 for new jobs.