Davol building new HQ to grow into

A booming plastic-surgery market and other favorable trends have made Davol Inc. outgrow its Cranston home, so it’s having a developer build it a new, 120,000-square-foot facility in Warwick, the company announced last week.
At the medical technology company’s current 74,000-square-foot building on Sockanossett Cross Road in Cranston, “we’re busting at the seams,” said Daniel LaFever, president of Davol Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of New Jersey-based C.R. Bard Inc.
LaFever said he hopes that with the move into a new three-story building in Warwick, the company won’t have to worry about not having enough space to develop and test more innovative products for the burgeoning market.
The move should take place in February next year, said Kelly Coates, senior vice president of Carpionato Properties Inc., the Johnston-based real estate developer that is building the structure.
The official groundbreaking for the new facility was to be held last Friday in the parking lot of the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the Crossings. The Davol headquarters will be the anchor of a new office park called Offices at the Crossings next to the hotel, which is at the intersection of Route 113 and Interstate 95 and near Interstate 295.
Carpionato agreed to build the headquarters at the request of Davol, which is the developer’s tenant at the Cranston location. Davol signed a 20-year lease for the new space.
Coates said the company’s fiscal stability, its roots and commitment to Rhode Island make it a perfect tenant. Asked why the company is renting instead of purchasing, LaFever said it’s corporate philosophy. Davol owns its manufacturing facilities abroad and rents its divisional headquarters.
Pilot manufacturing will take up 25 percent, or about 30,000 square feet, of the new headquarters. That space will be used to manufacture short runs of products developed in-house. Once the products get a foothold in the market, they are taken to manufacturing facilities elsewhere for mass production.
More good news about the larger site is that it can accommodate 100 more employees should the company need them, LaFever said. Davol employs 200 people in Rhode Island and 110 sales people internationally.
Davol develops products for key surgical specialties, including hemostasis (a procedure to stop bleeding), laparoscopy, hysteroscopy and orthopedics.
Through its breadth of offerings, the company says, it can increase operating room efficiency and lower costs for health care providers through product standardization.
The company was founded in Providence in 1874 by Joseph Davol and Emery Perkins, and within 15 years it was an international leader in the production of rubber drug and surgical supplies.
But Davol has “evolved a long way since rubber crutch tips,” LaFever said, adding that the company doesn’t make anything in rubber anymore. The materials are much more sophisticated.
In 1980, Davol became a subsidiary of the international medical product leader C.R. Bard Inc. In 1995 the company purchased American Hydro-Surgical Instruments, which expanded its laparoscopic irrigation capabilities.
Most recently Davol received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market a new hemostatic agent.
Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian said he is thrilled to see the company move its headquarters to the city.
“It’s a big development for us,” he said. “It adds to our business climate here and it’s a good use of the property.”