Mercury Printing in Rochester, N.Y., was founded in 1968 by Valerie Mannix as a typesetter and forms printer in the basement of her little ranch house. According to her son John Place, “We closed off the garage so we could store paper in the garage and she would print downstairs.”

In 1979, the company moved out of the house to a new location twice the size, and her son John joined the company straight out of high school. In 1982, they moved to a new facility twice the size again. Business was good, so they decided they needed to get into the 40-inch market, and that wouldn’t work in that facility. So in 1989, they went from a 3,500 sq.ft. building to a 20,000 sq.ft. building and they were off and running. By 1992, they had three 40-inch presses. Well, now they needed more space, so it was time to move again. This time it was Valerie’s chance to do what she really wanted: she designed and built a building from scratch. In 1992, that building was about 80,000 sq.ft. They added onto that facility three times and maxed it out. While they were getting good at moving, it was probably a big disruption to production.

Mercury Printing, which started in the basement, has moved six times to be able to support their continued growth. It has been in the current building for about 10 years, and this latest 300,000 sq.ft building has allowed them the ability to expand their space and continue to grow without moving again, especially since they have an expansion option to 400,000 sq.ft.