Canadian company Protocase and its subsidiary 45Drives hosted an open house this week at its first Wilmington-area production facility.

The 11,000-square-foot facility off U.S. 421 will assemble data storage and computer servers for 45Drives. Protocase, a Nova Scotia-based rapid manufacturing firm, announced last year that it had selected Wilmington for its first U.S. expansion.

The company began by leasing just over 5,100 square feet of office space in Wilmington’s Skyline Center before ramping up local hiring earlier this year. Doug Milburn, Protocase co-founder and president of 45Drives, told the Business Journal earlier this month that the company began looking to lease local production space in early December.

“We said, ‘We want to get manufacturing going,’ and dipping the toe in the water, doing it organically, picking a couple of models and putting assembly in was just a great place to start,” Milburn said.

They found a good fit in a space inside Maritime North Business Park at 4270 U.S. 421. According to a recent news release, the new production facility reinforces a commitment from Protocase and its subsidiaries to “expanding their manufacturing capabilities within the United States.” The facility will serve as a “critical hub for assembly and operations in the region,” the release stated.

According to Milburn, the facility will assemble high-value large data storage servers and large computer servers for virtual computing. The company’s FX series of hybrid servers will be the first line produced at the local hub. 

Milburn said this is just the beginning of the company’s growth in the area. Protocase officials have said the company has plans for a manufacturing facility that could employ around 400 people in the Wilmington area in the coming years.

The company also plans to grow another business, called Advanced Glazings, with a new sales office and, eventually, a production facility in the Wilmington area, Milburn said. Advanced Glazings makes translucent, insulated glass that helps moderate heat from sunlight and reduces glare.

“This glass, it controls glare, and it takes harsh, direct sunlight and converts it into soft, gentle, natural light that just comes and pushes out and all through the space,” Milburn said.

The company’s sales and production are currently based in Canada, but Advanced Glazings has ongoing projects worldwide, including in North Carolina. Milburn said he’s always been intrigued by the architecture of the Southeast and sees potential to take advantage of the region’s natural sunlight.

“The Southeast has this wonderful sunlight resource, and when you take that in, and you really do a more sophisticated job of putting natural lighting in a building, the buildings just become way, way better for human beings to be in,” he said.

As the other companies move to the area, Milburn said he wanted to explore expanding Advanced Glazings, too. Within the next year, Milburn said he expects the company to bring a production facility to the area, which would make a new product called Solera GR. The solar glare repair product can be applied to existing panes of glass to reduce heat and glare from sunlight and improve the diffusion of natural light.

In light of recent threats of tariffs between the U.S. and Canada, Milburn said he views Protocase's ongoing growth in Wilmington as a positive for the company.

“It certainly does make everything we're doing to put manufacturing in North Carolina make a whole lot more economic sense,” he said.