Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 19, 1993 TAG: 9305190061
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At the same time, Roanoke's economic development staff said the company's big building is drawing considerable attention from expanding corporations. Three companies looked at the 380,000-square-foot plant last week and one proposed an expansion.
Thirty former Gardner-Denver people have moved to the Reedrill drilling equipment plant at Sherman, Texas, and more will relocate soon, said Bill Westmoreland, Reedrill employee relations manager. Another 20 field sales and service workers who live in other cities have joined Reedrill, he said.
About 65 office and shop workers are winding down production toward a plant closing by the end of June, Westmoreland said. Walter Callahan, division president, still is in Roanoke.
Some Gardner-Denver workers have found other jobs and close to 60 have been declared eligible for counseling and/or training under a federally financed program. Eligibility has not been determined for another group of former employees.
Reedrill has completed about two-thirds of a shipment of at least 250 truckloads of equipment from Roanoke to Sherman. A large inventory of drilling equipment, parts and machine tools "is here and a lot more is coming," he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Westmoreland said the company has increased production considerably with the addition of the Gardner-Denver line and the market is picking up.
Cooper Industries, the Houston corporation that sold Gardner-Denver to Reedrill, blamed a "continued depression in our markets" for its decision in November to sell.
Roanoke's development staff has shown the building to at least a half-dozen companies. It is considered the best available factory of its size on the East Coast, Chittum said.
He said the asking price for the building in the Centre for Industry and Technology is $7.3 million, about half the $14 million construction cost in 1984.
He called it "a good attractor . . . that is generating a lot of activity" among industrial prospects. Chittum did not name the companies and he warned it may take time for a decision.
Some corporate shoppers are looking for a building of this size that can be available immediately without waiting for construction, Chittum said.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***