New Company’s Headquarters Will Bring Jobs, Keep Money Local
Come 2020, the East End of Portland will be looking a little different.
This week, the Portland Planning Board approved a site plan for the proposed headquarters of Vets First Choice, according to the Press Herald. The company fills and ships supplies and over-the-counter medications for local vet clinics to keep pet owners' money in the region as opposed to going online and ordering through Amazon or PetMeds.
The 170,000-square-foot facility will feature space for more than 1,500 employees including offices, a pharmacy, a fulfillment center and software and data science labs. Construction will begin immediately, with a two-phase schedule: the pharmacy and fulfillment center should be completed in October 2019, with the remainder of the construction wrapping by April 2020.
The new headquarters will create a prominent new source of employment for the Greater Portland area and beyond, Vets First co-founder and CEO Benjamin Shaw indicated in a news release.
“We expect to add more than 1,000 new high-quality jobs in southern Maine and believe this downtown location will be critical towards attracting world-class talent," Shaw said.
David Shaw, father of Benjamin, founded Idexx (a veterinary diagnostic testing products company) in 1983. The companies are contributing in a big way to Southern Maine becoming a hub for animal health services.
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