McCarthy Tire Service Company announced today the expansion of operations into a new facility near its existing Wilkes-Barre, Penn., location. The company is in the process of transforming a 75,000-sq.-ft. warehouse space into a retreading manufacturing facility, with plans to add 49 new full-time employees to its existing staff of 200 over the next three years.

McCarthy Tire currently 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. According to the company, it currently produces approximately 500 retreads a day, 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 percent 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.

“We are working closely with Bandag…to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant,” said John D. McCarthy, Jr., president of McCarthy Tire in a prepared statement. “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.”

According to details released by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, McCarthy Tire plans to invest $3,277,000 in the project, including the leasehold, infrastructure improvements and new equipment purchases. Roughly $225,000 was awarded in job development grants, tax credits and other subsidies.

Established in 1926, McCarthy Tire is a third-generation family owned and operated business, headquartered in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. The company is among the largest commercial tire dealers in the United States with more than 50 locations along the east coast.