Steel is beginning to rise out of the ground at the Hill’s Pet Nutrition plant, 400 S. Weaver St.
The plant is located on 80 acres of land, and when construction is completed sometime this year the site’s feature will be a 300,000 square foot structure that will provide an estimated 100 jobs for the area.
The process started in early 2007, when the company was recruited to build a plant here. The project hit a snag earlier in 2008, when the Facility Group, the contracting firm hired for the construction, ran into legal trouble. According to a Gazette article, the chief executive officer of that company, Robert Moultrie, and two other executives were indicted by a federal grand jury last March on 16 counts stemming from an alleged “conspiracy to corruptly influence and reward a public official.”
Construction is back on track, and the plant will be up and running by the end of this year, said Kent Heermann, president of the Regional Development Association of East Central Kansas.
“It’s making some good progress, I’m glad to see that,” Heermann said. “There’s a lot of steel coming up, they’re obviously building more of the production side of the plant first.”
While there’s no set schedule for the project, it needs to be completed this year.
“They need to be operational and have 100 employees hired before Dec. 31, 2009,” Heermann said. “They’re proceeding. They have sufficient time to get things accomplished.”
Hill’s has temporarily leased the Lenze building for some of its initial team members to begin work on commissioning the plant.
Heermann said the project is good news for Emporia.
“It’ll be fun to watch it over 2009,” he said. “It’s exciting. It’s a nice construction project to be going on during a recession.”