MicroChem Buys HQ

A specialty chemical manufacturer has purchased its new corporate headquarters and expects to fully occupy it by December.

MicroChem expects to start testing its manufacturing process for larger companies during the third quarter of this year, President and CEO Jay Cole told Westborough Patch on Friday.

The firm closed the deal on a 76,000-square-foot, two-story building at 200 Flanders Road around Dec. 26, Cole said. Hero Flanders Road Family Limited Partnership sold the site, which includes space for expansion.

MicroChem paid $5.4 million for the site, according to the Boston Business Journal.

MicroChem will move nearly all of its operations here from about 20,000 square feet of leased space in Newton, and expand at the new site.

However, the firm will retain about 5,000 square feet of the Newton facility as a backup, Cole said.

Voters at the Aug. 7 special town meeting gave MicroChem a 15-year tax increment financing deal that, according to Town Manager Jim Malloy, will bring an estimated $1.3 million to $1.5 million in addtional taxes, as well as 63 new jobs, to Westborough.

Cole said experts for both MicroChem and the Westborough Fire Department have worked together toward creating "a facility that was pretty much self-contained and wouldn't be a burden on the town."

"We're going to have one of the larger chemical storage licenses in Westborough," Cole said.

That "a lot of fire regulations are in the process of being changed" is among the issues the sides have discussed, he said. 

A building design should be ready in March, Cole said. Town permits then would be sought.