New Medline facility plans to bring 250 jobs to Orange County by 2024

A new distribution center for Medline, the United States' largest private medical supplies manufacturer, is coming to Orange County.

North Carolina, Orange County and the City of Mebane announced the successful recruitment of Medline on Thursday, Sept. 12.

With offices in 20 countries, the company sells products and services to medical facilities. The facility will be located in the Buckhorn Economic Development district along the north side of West Ten Road.

Orange County Commissioner Penny Rich is in favor of the new facility. 

“It’s such a positive company, that fact that we were able to land it here is just amazing,” Rich said.

Within five years, the center is predicted to create 250 jobs with an average salary of $35,468 a year. 

Medline Industries is investing $65,300,000 in the center over its first five years, according to the Orange County Board of Commissioners' action agenda for Sept. 10. 

“What that brings to the county is not only folks that want to move into Orange County, so our tax base will grow on top of the $65 million investment that they are going to put into it, but also you know you have new places that are going to be created because you do now need to accommodate the workforce,” Rich said. “You’ll have restaurants that might open, more daycare for the kids. It’s all these services that are linked to a growing workforce that benefit from this.”

The 1.2 million-square-foot facility is environmentally efficient and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified. The center itself is intended to be a distribution hub for the surrounding area.

“Will be some small assembly but nothing manufactured,” Rich said. “So the plant itself will be very green because it will not disturb the environment at all. The biggest distributor is the delivery trucks. That fleet will probably be 12-20 to start with but as it grows the fleet will grow.” 

Steve Brantley, director of economic development for Orange County, said the center did not receive any opposition from the community. The one question that came up was about the traffic and direction of the delivery trucks. 

“No one showed up to speak at the public hearing," Brantley said. "Looking at all the social media links that take comments, there were zero negative comments.”

Along with this, the county commissioners were also in favor of the Medline facility. 

“We were very pleased to see the county commissioners embrace the project but also the communities embrace,” Brantley said.

@beccafiely

city@dailytarheel.com