Last week’s passage of the 21st Century Cures Act by President Obama may already be paying off for Michigan’s Great Southwest. Just days after the president inked the act into law with Congressman Fred Upton standing by his side, Stryker Corporation announced plans Tuesday to invest more than $130-million for a brand new research & development center in Southwest Michigan.
A major 485,000 square foot campus in Portage for the Stryker Instruments division is being hailed by Congressman Upton as “exciting news,” and “a win-win for local patients and job creators.” Upton says that thanks in part to the bipartisan congressional approval of the 21st Century Cures Act, “we will now see more accelerated approvals of life-saving drugs and critical medical devices, and they will be manufactured right here at home.”
The new Portage campus for Stryker will feature a customer experience center, labs for research and development of new Stryker products, and both office space and a showroom as indicated in documents approved by the Michigan Strategic Fund in their meeting Tuesday in Lansing.
Corporate plans at Stryker show a groundbreaking in late spring next year with the entire facility advancing to full operations by the end of 2019. The facility will house not only the R&D work of Stryker, but will create 105 skilled engineering and scientist jobs in the next three years, on top of the more than 965 workers already employed there.
Upton was pumped up, telling his Facebook fans, “With this state-of-the-art project now in place, our entire Southwest Michigan region remains well-positioned to say on the cutting edge of medical research and innovations so we can improve our local quality of life.”
The 288 acre site is strategically located on industrial-zoned land along Portage Road, East Milham Avenue and Ramona Avenue. It’s land that was acquired earlier this fall from Pfizer, Inc. It will be built a stone’s throw from Stryker world headquarters on Portage Road.
The project was revealed by the Michigan Strategic Fund Board which authorized a $1-million performance-based recruitment and training grant according to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. That support dissuaded Stryker from opting for other options in other states across the nation.
The Stryker logo shown in the photo accompanying this story on Moody on the Market comes from a video stinger created by video effects artist Ken Chambers at Brown Bag Films in Dublin, Ireland.
