The landlord of a federally subsidized Baltimore County glove factory that never opened is trying to recoup $1.3 million, according to recent court filings.
Tradepoint Atlantic filed a lien against United Safety Technology last month, court records show. It followed up with a complaint alleging the proposed glove manufacturer has not been paying rent.
United Safety Technology did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, officials heralded plans for a $350 million factory in Baltimore County that would manufacture the blue exam-room gloves worn by nurses, doctors and medical professionals across the country.
Almost all of those gloves were made overseas. Thanks to an infusion of nearly $100 million from the federal government, this factory was supposed to help change that.
At a groundbreaking ceremony at Sparrows Point in 2022, United Safety Technology CEO Dan Izhaky said his company was going to transform a warehouse once used by Bethlehem Steel into a factory employing 2,000 people and churning out millions of gloves per month.
The plan was to install machines throughout the 735,000-square-foot facility, turning the cavernous space into one of the region’s top employers almost overnight.
Instead, it never produced a single glove.
Izhaky said earlier this year that the $96 million from the federal government wasn’t enough to get the factory up and running. Factories subsidized by the Chinese government were undercutting the prices of American-made personal protective equipment, according to Izhaky, causing his private financing to dry up.
The math just wasn’t working, Izhaky said in April, but he still believed United Safety Technology could open the factory — if the federal government stepped up with more money.
That month, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversaw the federal grant program, said the agency had terminated its contract with United Safety Technology for cause, making it unlikely to receive further taxpayer support.
Since then, the company has removed nearly all the references to a proposed Sparrows Point factory from its website.
United Safety Technology is one of a wave of companies founded during the pandemic to increase the supply of American-made PPE, pharmaceuticals and more. The federal government gave these companies billions of dollars in startup funds, but many companies — facing well-established competition from overseas factories — never got off the ground.
When asked about the lien, Aaron Tomarchio, the executive vice president of corporate affairs at Tradepoint Atlantic, said the logistics hub was disappointed that United Safety Technology’s “vision did not come to fruition.”
“It is unfortunate that the federal program to support the onshore manufacturing of PPE did not progress as planned and that efforts to stand up similar operations in other parts of the country also fell short,” Tomarchio said in a statement.
