CUNITY, spun from DuPont, says Newark campus will keep growing and employ about 800

Ryan Moss, the Newark site leader for CUNITY, told the New Castle County Economic Development Subcommittee on Dec. 2 that the electronic materials business formerly part of DuPont became the publicly traded company CUNITY on Nov. 1 and will continue operations and growth at the Newark campus.

Moss said CUNITY combines two main business lines at the Newark site — chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) technologies and advanced cleans and slurries — and that the company serves major semiconductor customers. "About 18 months ago, DuPont announced that DuPont would be splitting into 3 companies," Moss said. "November 1, CUNITY became a publicly traded company." He added that, combined across CUNITY's businesses, the firm is "right around, a total sales or revenue of around $5,000,000,000."

The presentation detailed the Newark campus footprint and workforce. Moss said the main campus is near the I-95 interchange and Bellevue Road, with 12 buildings, three manufacturing units, two R&D operations and a site footprint that "brings our total site footprint almost to 1,000,000 square feet." He estimated roughly 800 employees at the Newark site and 1,200 to 1,500 employees across Delaware locations, and described a recently completed mechanical expansion across from Glasgow High School that will shift some capacity there.

The chair who convened the subcommittee said she invited Moss to explain the corporate name change and "to put kind of a face on a warehouse" after constituent concerns about a warehouse conversion. Members thanked Moss for the update and asked questions about staffing and site locations. Moss said the Old Cooch's Bridge/Bridal Road expansion will relocate approximately 70 employees from the main campus during phase 2, and that some unused space on the main campus is being subleased to Sardo and Sons for a warehouse operation.

Not all remarks were appreciative. Councilman Street criticized DuPont's corporate history and the impact of past corporate splits on Wilmington, saying the company had "left a lot of environmental problems for the state of Delaware, and and this county, quite frankly, to to deal with." Moss's presentation did not include a direct response to that allegation in the meeting record; other council members, including Miss Kilpatrick, spoke in favor of retained operations and new investment.

The subcommittee recorded no formal vote related to CUNITY during the session; discussion concluded with a staff confirmation that there was no public comment online and a thank-you to Moss.