Peter Kimerling, national sales director for Identity Optical.
NORMAL, Ill.—Wholesale lab Identity Optical is preparing to break ground on a new coating facility here that will more than triple its current AR coating capacity. The 6,000 square foot expansion will house multiple AR chambers, a dip coating line, a state-of-the-art clean room and a Rotlex FFV high-resolution lens mapper.

It will have tightly controlled humidity, temperature and natural light penetration required to produce the highest performing coatings, according to Identity’s director of production, Dan Stevens. “The new coatings lab will be one of the largest of its kind, and will house the most advanced AR equipment available,” Stevens noted.

National sales director Peter Kimerling said that Identity Optical is boosting its output to meet an anticipated increase in demand resulting from strong sales in the private pay market and its recent acceptance into the VSP lab network. He said the new facility, which is set to open in the second quarter of 2016, will include a new, proprietary coating process.

“This expansion will establish Identity Optical as a truly elite independent laboratory,” said Kimerling.

Identity Optical purchased its current 12,000 square foot manufacturing headquarters when the company was founded in 2012. The company ranked 19th among U.S. independent wholesale laboratories in Vision Monday’s 2015 Top Labs Report, based on estimated Rx sales of $5.6 million and an output of 620 Rx jobs per day.

akarp@jobson.com