IKO celebrates new $70 million facility near Hagerstown
Facility employs 70 people making materials used atop flat-roofed buildings.
Mike Lewis, The Herald-Mail
An international roofing company gave customers and some local leaders tours of its new “flagship” facility near Hagerstown Thursday then cut a ribbon to mark its opening.
“It’s first of its kind for our company,” Derek Fee, manager of corporate communications for IKO, said of the facility.
“We manufacture different types of flat roofing products in Canada. But this one’s really exciting because it’s our entry into the U.S. commercial market. And this plant will have the capacity, when it’s fully operational, to service the Eastern Seaboard and perhaps beyond.”
IKO makes roofing, waterproofing and insulation produces for residential and commercial uses. The company was established in 1951 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and has been family-owned for four generations. It operates more than 35 plants and employs about 4,000 people across North America and Europe.
IKO invested some $70 million to expand and transform a former RadioShack warehouse off Western Maryland Parkway into its newest manufacturing and warehousing facility. About 40 people now work at plant which has a formal address of 160 IKO way.
‘First of its kind for IKO’
“It’s really pivotal for IKO, because it’s the start of our growth in the U.S. market,” said Guy Tremblay, the company’s vice president of North American operations.
IKO makes singles, like the roofing materials typically found on homes and other residential properties.
It also makes roofing for flat-roofed commercial buildings, such as stores, warehouses and other facilities. Those roofs are typically engineered systems that use an insulation board with a top ply to provide weatherproofing, Tremblay said.
“This plant is making the insulation board and the top ply, which is a polymeric membrane, which is new for us. It’s the first of its kind for IKO,” he said
That single-ply membrane is thermoplastic polyolefin, known as TPO.
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The Hagerstown facility brings in raw materials that are stored in …….