Saxonburg welcomes new manufacturing business, incubator from New Kensington
By the end of the year, the former Saxonburg Ceramics building on North Isabella Street in Saxonburg will finally have a new tenant.
Vere, a manufacturing company based in New Kensington, closed on the 65,000-square-foot building and is in the process of moving its entire operation and 12 employees there.
According to company founder Gerry Vaerewyck, only one floor of the building will house Vere. The other two floors will be rented to small manufacturing companies and startups. These floors will serve as a manufacturing “incubator” and will give businesses access to tools such as 3D printers, lathes, milling machines and other heavy machinery.
“This is a great opportunity to make the other two floors of this building available for manufacturing incubators,” Vaerewyck said. “In the city of Pittsburgh, if you want to do software and you need an office desk or something, there's tons of space. But if you actually want to drill holes and get dirt and chips on the ground, there isn't that much space to do that.”
Vere specializes in making “optical tables” — special tables which are used in scientific environments for their stability and rigidity for performing experiments.
“These tables are used for their big flat work surface,” Vaerewyck said. “They have tons of holes in them. They're very precise in that they don't bend or anything, and they're incredibly strong.”
Vere currently is headquartered at a manufacturing park in New Kensington, Allegheny County. However, Vaerewyck said the company has been forced to leave the park due to some changes.
“They're tearing down our end of the park, and they're booting us out,” Vaerewyck said. “They said it's not cost-effective or reasonable to repair these buildings. We have a very long track right here, and we’ve produced tons of stuff. That’s one reason it’s a little disappointing. We’ve brought in tens of millions of dollars into New Kensington over the past 30 years, and they’re just like, ‘Oh, well.’”
Vere, which was founded in 1988, has been in New Kensington for at least 30 years. As soon as Vaerewyck closed on the Saxonburg property, the process of moving out began.
“We're sending trucks over every day now,” Vaerewyck said.
Vaerewyck said the Saxonburg site will be the new main headquarters of Vere once the move is complete. The Saxonburg facility expects to begin “limited operations” in “two to three weeks” and become fully operational by Jan. 1.
According to Butler County property records, the nearly 1.5-acre parcel previously belonged to Abella Enterprises Corporation, which had held the property since 2008.
