Plans are to add 50,000 square feet to the existing facility, a $1.8 million investment, to accommodate the manufacturing of three products — flea and tick topical drops for dogs and cats, flea collars and aquatics pet food.
The move is a relocation of operations from New Jersey, where a manufacturing facility is being shut down, and represents about 100 new jobs in the area, said Stephen Cox, Hartz supply chain manager.
“No one needs to tell anyone in Ohio about manufacturing jobs leaving,” Cox said. “This groundbreaking begins the process to expand and invest here in Pleasant Plain. It represents a significant investment by Hartz and Sumitomo in this region and in the people and communities in southwestern Ohio who we are counting on for support.”
Officials from Warren and Clermont counties, Harlan Twp. and the state collaborated to make the deal happen.
“My dog Buck appreciates you,” Warren County commissioner Pat South told Hartz officials while holding up two products. “These are products I’ve always bought... It’s nice to know they will now be manufactured in our own backyard.”
Hartz officials said the biggest factor in determining where to relocate was getting access to additional sanitary sewers for the aquatics pet food operations.
Warren County Economic Development Director Martin Russell said the county is devoting $300,000 from Community Development Block Grants to install 6,900 feet of sanitary sewer lines to connect with Clermont County’s infrastructure.
Also included in the incentives is a job creation tax credit of $138,000 from the state over five years.
Goshen and Scarlet Oaks school systems agreed to a 10-year tax increment financing agreement that’s worth $200,000 in deferred property taxes, Russell said. The added infrastructure will hopefully attract more industrial and business growth to the area, Russell said.
Schmidt praised the collaborative effort among local governments.
“Why did this collaboration work?” Schmidt said. “It’s because many of us are farmers, and if you understand the farming community, we know you can’t exist as an island unto yourself.”
The expansion project, awarded to Cincinnati United Contractors, will take place in three phases. Topical drops operations will transition in August, flea collars in November and the project will be complete by early 2011 with the transition of aquatics pet food operations, said plant manager Kurt Polinger, who relocated three weeks ago to Miami Twp. in Clermont County from New Jersey.
Hartz Mountain bought its existing facility, which makes birdseed and other food for small pets, in March 1997. It employs 80 people on a daily basis, Hartz officials said.
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