Orange County and North Carolina officials gathered Thursday to formally announce a national medical supplier has chosen Mebane as the home of its new distribution center.

Medline Industries, a distributor and manufacturer of medical supplies, will build a $65 million facility in the Buckhorn Economic Development District near Mebane. Representatives from the company, the state’s commerce department, Orange County and the City of Mebane all joined to make official their approval of Medline.

North Carolina Secretary of Commerce Tony Copeland said the state is excited over the economic opportunities the 1.2 million-square-foot facility will bring both to the region and North Carolina as a whole. He highlighted the proximity to the Research Triangle and the state’s location on the eastern seaboard as a big resource for Medline.

“We’re an eight-hour drive from 80 percent of the customers in America,” said Copeland. “This is basically a logistics hub for distribution. But also, we have a workforce second-to-none. Think of all the customer access they have in this area, with all the medical assets we have [in the Research Triangle].”

Medline says it expects to create 250 new jobs in its first five years. If this facility follows similar tracks to its others in the region, the company could reach 600 jobs over its first 10 years. Economic incentives have been put in place with yearly benchmarks for the new center, with the company receiving more than $1.8 million in tax incentives from Orange County over the course of five years. Medline is also in line for $1.725 million from the state and $803,000 from Mebane in incentives.

Medline’s vice president of corporate communications Blair Klein described the purpose of the facility, saying the expansion to the region is about making healthcare operate smoothly.

“Whether it’s a just-in-time delivery to a local hospital system for supplies or a routine weekly distribution to physician offices, the employees and team members of this location will be fulfilling those orders,” Klein said. “They’ll be picking them, packaging them and driving them. All of the employees in this area that we’ll be hiring locally will be contributing to that larger healthcare mission.”

Mebane Mayor Glendel Stephenson shared some remarks at the announcement, saying Mebane is grateful and excited Medline has chosen to be by their city. Stephenson also hinted that more economic development projects are on the way for the region.

“I believe today is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Stephenson. “Regarding the financial return on the investment we’ve made on water and sewer connections [around the Buckhorn district] over the last number of years, I think it’s paying off. I don’t believe it’s too hard to visualize multiple announcements coming in the months and years ahead for this particular area.”

Construction on the site for Medline’s distribution facility is slated to begin in October, with the facility opening in late 2020.

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