Kyowa Kirin, the Japanese pharmaceutical company which announced in February it was locating a 100-plus job operation in Lee County, will occupy a downtown Sanford building for at least two years while its permanent facility is under construction.
Beginning in February, the company’s employees will work from 130 N. Steele St. The building was most recently a First Horizon Bank location (formerly Capital Bank), but has been vacant for a number of years.
“We’re currently located in Cary at our engineering design firm, and we’re running out of space,” said Chaz Calitri, Kyowa Kirin’s site leader for North American manufacturing. “We’ll have 40 people at (the downtown Sanford site), and in 2026 we’ll add 40 more. This will be a great way to have everyone in Sanford as we move forward with the permanent site.”
Calitri said locating in downtown Sanford was important to the company because it will exemplify its commitment to the community.
“Integrating into Sanford is vital to being a corporate citizen,” he said. “This will give us connectivity to all kinds of organizations like SAGA, CCCC, businesses, and vendors. You’ve got a diverse community and we want to be reflective of that.”
The building is one of several purchased in recent years by Cary developer James Goodnight Jr., who has a track record of rehabbing older buildings in other parts of the state. With Kyowa Kirin moving in, it is the first of Goodnight’s purchases to be put to new use.
“(Kyowa Kirin) is going to continue to bring new faces and people into Sanford and keep increasing the tax base in a positive way,” said John Ramsperger, owner of Sanford Real Estate. “We’ve already got merchants and business owners downtown who are making loft apartments in their spaces, and putting this many professionals with disposable income downtown will only continue bringing people downtown, not just to shop and dine, but to live. That’s a welcome change, and it’s going to make it more viable to keep investing in downtown.”
Downtown Sanford Inc. Executive Director Kelli Laudate said Kyowa Kirin is a perfect fit for downtown.
“Kyowa Kirin’s office space marks a significant milestone for downtown Sanford as we continue working towards the goal of living, working, and playing in the service district,” she said. “We know that Kyowa Kirin will be a valuable partner in the economic growth of the county and our downtown district, and the Downtown Sanford Inc. group will be here to support them as they get to know our community better.”
Kyowa Kirin’s permanent plant will be located on Hawkins Avenue. The company announced in February that it would locate in Lee County and make a $530 million tax base investment and create 102 jobs with an average wage of more than $91,000.
So, Sanford is going all out for pharmaceutical companies and the city council gives them “incentives” like NO TAXES FOR 10 YEARS, while we have to pay for everything.
Remember, THEY NEED YOU SICK TO STAY IN BUSINESS!!!
And pharmaceutical meds saved my life, so there’s that. The alternative of not having these companies doesn’t seem like a wise choice either. You are free to deny medical care, and drugs all you want. Good luck with that.
nobody saved your life with drugs that are made nowadays. I don’t want to hear your stories. Your wise choice was to do something else to make yourself sick to get those people to “fix” you in the first place. I don’t want to hear your sob stories; YOU THINK the meds saved your life. Something they made probably Made you sick in the first place.
https://www.kyowakirin.co.jp/stories/20240913/index.html
and they are all about PRIDE MONTH! I don’t want them here and I pay taxes, city, county, state and federal!!
and not ONE person in Sanford will get a job from them.
You are not worthy to know my story. As I said, you are free to choose to deny medical care and medicine. Honestly, that might be the best choice for society.
Hopefully these ostensibly high paying jobs will be a boon to the few restaurants and boutiques within walking distance in our downtown. Why so many empty store fronts? Can we subsidize small businesses? Publicly owned corporations have plenty of capital. Let’s be a community that help out small owner-operators. Just an idea.
The reason for the empty store fronts is that Downtown Sanford was built up before residential shopping centers began to be constructed in the 1950’s. There were no interstate quality highways to bigger cities and no internet and next day delivery. The main merchant with the business owned his or her building and rented space above for offices or apartments. Highway improvements came and caused these business to move to more suburban areas. The owners of the buildings often became reclusive absentee property owners who did not want to sell because they did not want to be taxed on the greatly increased value of the building that had appreciated over 40-50 years. Finally parking availability in Downtowns is a problem in all downtowns across America. So now only niche business can afford to go downtown – business that do not cater to high traffic or high volume buying. Where you see full downtowns are usually tourist towns where tourist dollars are accounting for perhaps half the business. Sanford is not a tourist town like Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Blowing Rock, Brevard, Boone, etc. If it were there would be three businesses downtown selling Christmas ornaments, two fudge shops, three restaurants, and a half a dozen real estate officers. The City’s Police Station would be Downtown as well as the Central Fire Station. The City has taken the correct approach on this by developing the south end of Moore Street and the north end of 1st Street But finally consider this one stubborn fact, The railroad splits Downtown Sanford like a axe murderers big blade. The nature of the junction has been dirty, oily, and dusty for the last 100 years. And the nature of Jim Crow caused the south end to be racially segregated for the last 125 years. That’s the answer to the why.
and then we built the BYPASS!!! Why in the world should anyone go downtown. To watch the homeless people, get dropped off by Chatham County? Or maybe go watch drag queens? Or watch the drug deals go down?
How many people in Lee County don’t mind foreign entities gobbling up Lee County bit by bit. Or, maybe Bill Gates, or maybe Black Rock? They are ruining North Carolina with a thousand little cuts. And, doing it during the holidays, with your minds on other things. Democrats need to get brains and rino rats need to get some big ones.
The CCP owns Roy Cooper. So, think about it for a minute, who gets the jobs at these places? Are there any children out there that have made it through a 4-year college with the degrees or the brains to work at any of these places, NO! So, we will need to bring in foreign workers on “Work” Visas, do you want that? Anyone for this in Lee County like Kirk Smith or John Sauls should NOT be re-elected. I just wonder what the deep state has on these people.
It’s my own opinion, but I have heard worse about Jim Womack on the Rant, so it’s time to speak out and find out that NOW there are FOUR Pharmaceutical companies within a 20-mile radius of that lovely Raleigh Executive Airport. Look at Exits 69 to 89, we have many things going on, the fourth Pharmaceutical Company is in New Hill right off of Exit 89,
4130 Friendship Rd, New Hill, NC 27562
AMGEN!
I can’t wait for Robert Kennedy Jr. to come in and finish these people.
Remember,
Pfizer Stated in A Court of Law: “We Did Not Defraud the Government, We Delivered the Fraud That the Government Ordered”.
Five U.S. States Sue Pfizer Over False Claims of Vaccine Safety and Efficacy.
Do I need to say anymore? Find out what drugs you are REALLY taking and where these drugs actually come from…you will be surprised
AND STOP THESE INCENTIVES FOR THESE COMPANIES TO MOVE INTO LEE COUNTY, GIVE US BACK OUR MONEY!!!
Dementia is a bad thing.
Sticks and stones…
If the only thing you can do is “name call” you don’t have a leg to stand on.
I do EVERYTHING AROUND MY HOME. Unlike some of you that live in Lee County. I do my own laundry, I pay all my bills, I balance our check book every month. I cut my grass, not by sitting on a “Zero” turn lawnmower but by using a “commercial “push” Toro. I take care of my leaves in my yard.
I iron my own clothes, I don’t send them out to the dry cleaners. When my children were at home “I” took care of them, not a stranger and they were NEVER in “daycare”. I cook my own meals, I don’t go out to eat every meal. No fast food, no chain restaurants. I was a Military wife for 30 years! My husband would be away six months out of a year, so I HAD to know how to do everything and at the age of 66, I do more before 9 AM than most of you people who are criticizing me. Come take a run/walk around the block with me and my Belgian Malinois at 7AM in the morning, IF you can keep up!!
Half of you can’t even do math in your head, you depend on your “smart” phones for everything, I don’t I have those stupid “smart” phones, I own a flip phone. We used to know all our friends phone numbers by heart.
So, go look up the word dementia in the dictionary, and see if a person with dementia could do ALL the things I do in a day. I think NOT!
Plus I am a dog trainer, been doing THAT for 26 years, I have titles on ALL my dogs, all six of them. And, I can remember enough to help others with their dogs, without looking things up. I could go on, but I’m told I talk too much.
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Dementia is a broad term for loss of thinking ability that’s severe enough to interfere with your daily life. Thinking abilities include things such as memory, language skills, problem-solving, visual perception, self-management, and your ability to focus and pay attention.
Okay, an obsessive compulsive disorder of some kind then.
When you claim the Chinese Community Party owns the Governor and that you can’t wait for RFK to come in and bring his antivaxx crazy to America don’t you understand that most people will come the conclusion that it is you with the mental processing deficiency?
Wow! Do you check what you type? Or do you depend on your computer? Because it’s the Communist Chinese Party, and you are calling RFK Jr (because RFK was killed long ago) crazy. WOW! I’m in good company. And suddenly the Democrats hate the Kennedys, that’s sad.
I just cannot wait until you find out how wrong you really are, it’s going to be as fun as Nov. 5th was, that was my early Christmas Present! I think you may have some problems; you can’t even check your own work when you respond.
ALL vaccines cannot be verified as “safe and effective”. Just go look it up, please, and verify your sources. Of course, we have to go to a source that is not controlled by big Pharma or the CDC or the WHO. Now, do you know what those initials mean? I’ll help you with it since you seem to have some problems with letters.
CDC – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
WHO – World Health Organization
There, so you won’t have to use what little brain you have left.
Poor C, I try not to pick on those less educated than myself because it’s unfair and unethical. But I will make an exception in your case. Actually I like to The Lancet or JAMA that I access through either Wake Forest’s, UNC’s, or NC State’s Library. It’s tough these days getting some articles as the Dutch run company Elsiver has put nearly everything it can behind a pay wall. The fact that you use non-clinical terminology such as “safe and effective” indicates you can’t absorb real research and likely can’t comprehend anything but a binary “yes” or “no” answer to a complicated question. I had no idea that I needed to differentiate between dead and live Kennedys. Who knew? I will have to read Emily Post on the conventions for the use of the suffix junior ceases after the senior is dead but before the III is born. But thank you for calling attention to how tricky spell check can be on the Rant. But spelling a word such as “Crazy” crazy or crazie, the meaning should get through to all but the densest OCD sufferers.