Cardinal Health plant in Crystal Lake to close by mid-year 2023

The Cardinal Health manufacturing facility in Crystal Lake will close its doors by mid-year 2023, and has informed its employees and city of the change, officials said.

The company met with its employees and are planning to provide additional compensation, benefits and outplacement services “to support them through this transition,” Erich Timmerman, a spokesperson with the company, told the Northwest Herald in an email Wednesday.

“We continually adapt our business to meet the changing needs of our industry,” Timmerman said in an email.

The company did not elaborate on the reasons for the closure or how many employees would be affected. The Northwest Herald made follow-up attempts through both its corporate office and its Crystal Lake center at 815 Tek Drive, but were not given further details.

Cardinal Health manufactures health care products, including pharmaceuticals and medical and laboratory products, according to its website. It also offers various health care services to hospitals and clinics. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, the company operates in more than 30 countries with about 44,000 employees worldwide, according to its website.

The Crystal Lake Chamber of Commerce was unaware of the closure, President Bill Eich said Thursday. With a company that size, he said, decisions to close or consolidate operations are typically made at a much higher level.

There are always businesses looking for space and facilities, Eich said. Employees affected by closure also are usually looking to stay in the area, he said, and he expects many of those employees to eventually be picked up by other businesses.

Eich said he was not sure how many employees were going to be affected by the closure, saying the COVID-19 pandemic has made things like that much harder to track.

“Whether they’ve been working at home or the factory has been a new dynamic,” he said. “Many businesses you think wouldn’t have operations that could be home based all of a sudden do.”

Cardinal Health has been a member of the Crystal Lake Chamber since at least 2009 and has been active in participating and offering sponsorships around the area, Eich said.

The city of Crystal Lake was notified of the closure at the end of last week, said Katie Cowlin, the city’s director of community development. Similar to the Chamber, she said Cardinal Health has had a longstanding relationship with the city and has been a “great community partner.”

“We’ll work with them and their team on next steps and make sure we do anything we can to make sure it’s a viable facility either for them or for another company in the future,” she said.

The Illinois Notices of Layoffs and Closures page did not list Cardinal Health among upcoming closures in its March update. Illinois law requires companies with at least 75 employees to give notice of a closure to the state 60 days before operations cease.

Despite the planned closure, Cardinal Health is still hiring for the Crystal Lake site. Four new job openings were posted on its website Thursday, all of which are technician jobs.

Attempts to speak with employees outside the plant were unsuccessful, with some saying they were instructed not to talk to the media about the closure.