June 18, 2026
Acuity Closes Winona Production Facility
Production shifts to Crawfordsville as 86 roles in Minnesota are eliminated
The Minnesota Production Facility in Winona will soon run its last shift. Acuity confirmed on Wednesday that the plant will wind down operations by the end of August 2026. The move eliminates 86 positions, with production moving primarily to its Indiana Production Facility in Crawfordsville.
The closure is less a turning point than a punctuation mark on a decision already years in the making. Acuity acquired Winona Lighting in 2010, when Acuity was a $1.6 billion operation. It has since grown to over $4 billion in revenue, and the manufacturing footprint has evolved accordingly. The Winona brand itself was discontinued in November 2022, with that wind-down completed by August 2023. Since then, the Winona facility produced lower-volume made-to-order architectural fixtures for other Acuity brands, including Mark, Peerless, Healthcare Lighting, Hydrel, and A-Light. Now that chapter closes too.
"As part of our ongoing efforts to align our manufacturing network to best support our customers and long-term business needs, we are closing the Minnesota Production Facility and transitioning its manufacturing operations primarily to our Indiana Production Facility," a company spokesperson said. "We value and appreciate the contributions of the MNPF team and the role this facility has played over many years."
A Common Calculation
File photo (February 2018): A branded pillow rests on a couch in the reception area of Acuity's Minnesota Production Facility in Winona, Minnesota.
Manufacturing consolidation is routine in the lighting industry and across multi-billion-dollar industrial businesses generally. Larger, more efficient facilities absorb specialized operations. Production gets redistributed. Acuity cited productivity gains across its operations and described the Indiana consolidation as the next step in that work. There is no particular reason to read more into it than that.
A notice filed with the state of Minnesota adds detail the company's statement to Inside Lighting did not include. The filing lists 86 positions being permanently eliminated, spanning assembly, fabrication, CNC programming, manufacturing engineering, maintenance, and production scheduling. Some employees are represented by IBEW Local 953, which holds bumping rights under its collective bargaining agreement with Acuity.
The filing also puts the permanent facility closure at on or about November 30, 2026, a date that does not align precisely with the end-of-August wind-down timeline the company communicated to Inside Lighting.
What Comes Next
The Winona facility produced work that mattered. Its contributions to notable installations over the years reflected the kind of specialized manufacturing capability that is harder to replicate at scale, and easier to consolidate on a spreadsheet than to rebuild when demand shifts.
For now, the company has made its position clear. CEO Neil Ashe has built his tenure at Acuity around a three-word operating philosophy: Better. Smarter. Faster. Consolidating specialized, lower-volume production into a larger, more efficient facility fits that framework. The Winona team built things that mattered, and that record stands regardless of what the manufacturing map looks like going forward.
