New Balance just broke ground last week on its $65 million factory expansion in Maine, but the sneaker company sees even more potential in producing its popular shoes on shore.
The Boston-based rival to Adidas and Nike is putting together plans for a new footwear factory in New Hampshire, which would add to the five manufacturing sites it already runs in the U.S. and signal a new vote of confidence in the value of close-to-market production. The move follows the March opening of the Black-owned JEMS by Pensole shoe factory an hour away in Somersworth, adding to New Hampshire’s growing street cred in the footwear business.
The town of Londonderry—population 26,000—is the site of the single-story, 102,418-square-foot footwear factory the New York City Marathon sponsor wants to construct on 55 Pettengill Road. The location, could employ up to 250 people if the more than $70 million project gets the go-ahead and the proposed factory hits a projected open-for-business target date around the end of next year. The new headcount would add to the company’s 1,300 manufacturing workers.
The site would mark the company’s first footwear facility outside of Maine and Massachusetts.
In a statement, New Balance chief operating officer Dave Wheeler said the company is “excited about the opportunity to expand our domestic manufacturing footprint in New Hampshire and add hundreds of family-sustaining jobs to the Londonderry community.”
He went on to say that the brand’s U.S.-produced Made line, a favorite with A-list trendsetters from Kaia Gerber to Hailey Baldwin, serves as a “competitive advantage” highlighting American craftsmanship and helping meet “significant U.S. and global consumer demand.”
Kaia Gerber wearing New Balance Made sneakers.
Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images
New Balance has prioritized on-shore production, which represents a limited portion of its total volume, while the biggest athletic shoe companies make virtually all of their sneakers with Asian titans such as Pou Chen. Early last year the Kawhi Leonard and Jack Harlow-fronted brand opened a shoe factory in Massachusetts, where Spraybot systems robotize parts of the footwear assembly process.
But the company has run afoul of Made in America standards, with a class-action lawsuit filed in December 2021 still snaking through the court system. New Balance says its American-made shoes contain a “domestic value of 70 percent or more” to comply with federal requirements. At the Massachusetts factory opening last year, executives discussed ramping up the company’s domestic supplier network to source more footwear components from in- or near-market vendors to reduce its reliance on far-afield foreign inputs.
Last month Londonderry’s heritage commission heard New Balance’s manufacturing project application, which is up for review by the town’s planning board members during their meeting Wednesday evening.
At a June 5 groundbreaking ceremony in Maine to kick off a 120,000-square-foot expansion, New Balance president and CEO Joe Preston reiterated how manufacturing is “core” to company culture. “Our Maine associates have proven that high-quality athletic footwear can be produced in the U.S.,” he said. “Our Skowhegan factory expansion ensures their skilled craftsmanship and dedication to continuous improvement will help us meet our significant U.S. and global consumer demand and drive future business growth.”
New Balance executives and Maine stakeholders at the Maine factory expansion groundbreaking ceremony on June 5, 2023.
Courtesy of New Balance
Beyond the sprawling addition to the five-floor Maine facility, New Balance is upgrading another 20,000 square feet without interrupting ongoing footwear production