QVI Breaks Ground on Manufacturing Building

Quality Vision International, the Rochester-based manufacturer of precision optical measurement systems, broke ground on May 9 on a 16,000-square-foot-manufacturing building on its Hudson Avenue campus. Construction of the building marks the last phase of a five-year, 37,000-square-foot expansion of the company’s global engineering and manufacturing headquarters.

“Construction of this new building will complete our five-year plan to add the necessary manufacturing space for our expanded product lines, enabling us to serve the growing market for our metrology system products around the world,” says Keith Polidor, QVI’s chief operating officer.

Building #4 is the final phase of construction to add additional manufacturing capacity. Beginning in 2014, the company added 12,500 square feet to its Assembly building, followed by a 4,200-square-foot addition to its South machine shop, and a 4,000-square-foot addition to its Customer Center showroom. Properties were acquired along Herald Street to provide land for buildings and parking. The Hudson Avenue campus occupies more than 275,000 square feet of manufacturing space and employs over 300 full time staff.

QVI has been located at the 850 Hudson Avenue site since 1973. Prior to that, the company operated at 26 Forbes Street in Rochester, and at various locations in downtown Rochester since its founding in 1945.

“This additional capacity is a vital step forward as we continue serving our growing base of global manufacturing customers,” says R. Stephen Flynn, senior vice president of QVI. “As precision and quality grow ever more important to consumers, our products become more important to manufacturers. This new space will allow us to build the larger and more sophisticated measurement systems that our customers need to improve their production processes,” Mr. Flynn says.

“So much of our growth is the result of our long-time partnerships with our Representative Partners,” says Mr. Flynn. “Twenty years ago, our Western New York Representative Dick Loewenguth helped break ground for our North Street Assembly Building. Today, his son Tom Loewenguth put the first shovel in the ground for this new building,” Mr. Flynn notes. “These long-standing relationships between manufacturers and their sales representatives are increasingly rare, and we take great pride in these partnerships that have helped us to become the world leader in vision metrology systems.”