AKRON, Ohio — GOJO Industries, the maker of Purell sanitizing products, announced it has signed a 20-year-old lease to remain in Downtown Akron at its headquarters.
Samantha Williams, GOJO’s corporate communications senior director, said the company sign a sale-leaseback agreement for GOJO Plaza in August.
“As part of this, we sold the property to a buyer and signed a 20-year lease agreement for 1 GOJO Plaza. GOJO Plaza is our world headquarters, and we have no plans to move our headquarters from GOJO Plaza. We understand the buyer of GOJO Plaza may have listed the property more recently; however, this does not impact GOJO or our long-term lease of GOJO Plaza.”
The demand for the company’s hand sanitizer and soaps exploded as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold across the world, thrusting the longtime Akron employer into the spotlight.
"We are a humble Akron company and the limelight is not a place that we had spent a lot of time— and frankly a place that we were all that comfortable— before the pandemic," said President and CEO Carey Jaros to News 5 in October. "We're sort of people who do our jobs and not people who sort of seek out a lot of attention, so it was an adjustment."
During the pandemic, GOJO has delivered 1.4 billion uses of Purell products throughout the world and increased the production of hand sanitizer bottles by 300% compared to 2019.
As GOJO continues to make and distribute its products, the company also recently made a decision regarding vaccine requirements for employees.
"We actually just announced that we will have a vaccine requirement that will be in effect on Dec. 8 (as part of) the national executive order," Jaros said.
RELATED: Pandemic thrusts Akron-based GOJO into spotlight
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