McCarthy Tire's New Retread Plant Earns Governor's Praise

Aug. 19, 2016

The governor of Pennsylvania is praising McCarthy Tire Service Inc. for building its new retread plant in Wilkes-Barre and adding 49 full-time jobs over the next three years to the local economy.

The new plant will be the largest Bandag retread facility in North America. It will have a capacity of 1,000 retreads per day, double the output of the current plant less than a mile away.

“Through this growth, McCarthy Tire will become one of the top three largest tire retreaders in North America,” says Governor Tom Wolf. “In addition to this accomplishment, the company will expand its workforce significantly, providing 49 new, full-time jobs in Wilkes-Barre. We applaud McCarthy Tire for its continued success and for the support it provides for the region’s economic well-being.”

To increase manufacturing capacity, McCarthy Tire will expand retreading operations by executing a 10-year lease of a 75,000-square-foot facility that is now used for warehousing. The company plans to invest $3,277,000 in the project, including the leasehold, infrastructure improvements, and new equipment purchases. McCarthy Tire has committed to the creation of 49 new, full-time jobs over the next three years, and the retention of 197 existing employees.

McCarthy Tire received a funding proposal from the Department of Community and Economic Development that includes a $150,000 Pennsylvania First Program grant, $49,000 in Job Creation Tax Credits to be distributed upon creation of the new jobs, and $22,050 in WEDnetPA funding for employee training.

“We are working closely with Bandag, the global leader in retread manufacturing, to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant,” says John McCarthy Jr., president of McCarthy Tire. “This will be the largest Bandag retread facility in North America. It seemed fitting to locate it in Wilkes-Barre, the city where my grandfather started McCarthy Tire Service 90 years ago.”

The new retreading plant is located one-quarter mile from McCarthy Tire’s flagship location on Kidder Street in Wilkes-Barre, and only three miles from Interstate 81, a major transportation corridor for the Northeast. The warehouse currently is being retrofitted into a manufacturing plant with production anticipated to begin in late September. Working closely with Bandag officials, McCarthy Tire is installing state-of-the-art machines from Bandag’s line of manufacturing equipment. The plant also will feature the managers’ offices, a large break room for employees, and a conference room for meetings and training events.

McCarthy Tire operates eight retreading facilities in Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. The Wilkes-Barre plant supplies retreads to the company’s 10 commercial tire stores in Pennsylvania. It currently produces approximately 500 retreads a day, or more than 130,000 units per year. Once operations are moved over to the new plant in September, production is expected to increase by 50% to 750 units per day by the end of 2016. The operation is anticipated to reach full capacity of 1,000 units per day in 2017.

McCarthy Tire is no. 21 on the Modern Tire Dealer 100 and is the sixth largest independent commercial dealer and the eighth largest independent retreader according to MTD research.

For details on the McCarthy Tire's new retread plant and other growth initiatives, see “5 Things to Know About the Future of McCarthy Tireand “Top 100 Dealers Are Acquiring, Renovating, and Building.”