Improvements on a road important for a new manufacturing facility will proceed following a vote Monday by the Poplar Bluff City Council.
The council accepted a bid for $244,764 from RLP Construction of Poplar Bluff for concrete paving of South 11th Street in the area of the Poplar Bluff Industrial Park.
Empire Comfort Systems is in the process of constructing a new facility in that area.
The road project will be funded with state grant dollars from the community block development grant program. Less than $25,000 in costs will come from the city, said city manager Mark Massingham.
“... the manufacturing timeline for needing this road completed for opening of the facility is quickly approaching and time is of the essence,” engineering manager Billy Cobb of Smith & Company wrote in a letter to city officials.
Empire Comfort Systems officials hope to have their new facility on South 11th Street open by August. It is the first new manufacturing facility to be built from the ground up in the Poplar Bluff Industrial Park in 30 years.
Massingham did not have information concerning the timeline for the road project, as of press time, but said the goal is to be complete by the factory opening in the fall.
Bids for the road were also received in the amounts of: $237,322 from Robertson Bridge and Grading of Poplar Bluff; and $289,995 from Zoellner of Perryville.
The Robertson bid did not include an alternate for concrete paving. Both the RLP and Zoellner bids included the alternate.
“Engineers and most people felt like concrete was the way to go. The road will last a lot longer,” said Massingham, adding that engineers also recommended accepting the RLP bid.
The bid was a workshop and voting item.
The 140,000-square-foot Empire facility could employ up to 200 people in the next five years, owners said when an announcement was made in May.
A line of fireplace inserts that represent about one-third of company sales, and one-quarter of company profits, will be the first items to be made in Poplar Bluff. Before Thanksgiving, the company hopes to be making a line of cast iron stoves here. By February, it would add a line of outdoor items, Broilmaster Premium Grills. And around May 2020, a line of custom decorative facades would join the Poplar Bluff-made items.
The company expects to have about 30 employees in 2019, and about 75 in 2020. In five years, the total could be 150-200.