Poly Craft Industries opens Middletown plant, brings 120 jobs to Orange County

Poly Craft Industries cut the ribbon on its Middletown operation Tuesday, putting a packaging manufacturer with customers across the country on Industrial Place and adding a new industrial payroll to Orange County. The Hauppauge company moved its corporate headquarters to Middletown as part of the project, which city officials said would bring about 120 jobs and strengthen the local economy with work that residents can reach without leaving the county.

The company’s expansion centers on a 6.4-acre site that includes a new 72,000-square-foot facility, along with an existing office building and room for more growth. State filings showed Poly Craft expected to satisfy rising demand for its laminated and nonlaminated bags, pouches and boxes by building a state-of-the-art plant and eventually adding more space in phases. Those plans called for a future renovation of the existing building and another 40,000 to 50,000 square feet in a later expansion, underscoring that the Middletown move was designed as a long-term industrial base, not a short-term footprint.

The project has already generated a measurable employment boost. Empire State Development said it supported 54 new local jobs, while more than 50 employees relocated from Long Island with the business. City officials also pointed to 171 construction jobs tied to the buildout. Earlier project materials pegged the investment at about $30 million and estimated roughly 100 jobs with an average salary of $65,000, figures that help explain why Middletown competed hard for the company and why the state committed $500,000 through the Excelsior Jobs Program.

Middletown Mayor Joseph DeStefano used the opening to frame manufacturing as a different kind of growth than the residential development that has dominated so much of the region. He said the city needs places where people can work close to home, and argued the project’s environmental footprint was relatively small compared with many other types of development. Connor Eckert of the Orange County Partnership said the deal reflected a wider effort among government, business, workforce groups and trade organizations to win companies in a national competition for industrial jobs.

Poly Craft’s products also give the plant broader economic significance. The company supplies packaging used by supermarkets and convenience stores nationwide and has previously been linked to brands including Jelly Belly, Serta Mattress and Whole Foods. Middletown is now also gauging interest in other vacant properties, including the former Playtogs building on Dolson Avenue, a sign that Poly Craft may be less of an isolated win than an early marker of renewed industrial reuse in the city’s older commercial corridors.