By Rick Palsgrove
Southeast Editor
Groveport’s bustling and ever growing industrial parks just got a little busier.
Groveport Finance Director and Assistant City Administrator Jeff Green announced on Aug. 14 that Fluvitex – a company that manufactures pillows, comforters and other bedding products for IKEA – is coming to Groveport.
“They will occupy 124,000 square feet in the Northpointe II building at the corner of Rohr and Pontius roads and plan on investing between $12 to $30 million in machinery, equipment and racking,” said Green.
According to Green, the company will employ approximately 350 workers within its first three years of operation, with an average wage of $56,350 per year.
“Their total annual payroll is expected to be $4.1 million,” said Green. “The payroll will consist of approximately 75 percent factory and 25 percent management and specialty workers. The company will operate two shifts with seasonal spikes in operations.”
Fluvitex is expected to begin operations in Groveport by the spring of 2018.
City park improvements
The city of Groveport appropriates $75,000 per year for park improvements.
According to Groveport City Administrator Marsha Hall, the city will spend around $20,200 of this fund on park improvements this year.
“The remainder of the $75,000 will be retained into 2018 for a larger project,” said Hall, who added she is awaiting feedback from city council regarding potential park projects for 2018.
“I’m not sure yet what project we may do,” said Hall. “We have several included in the Park Master Plan that we can do.”
Park upgrades being done this year are:
•Heritage Park – Tree maintenance, planting an 18 foot blue spruce, electrical upgrades with timer relays to provide additional power throughout the park, and installation of tiered seating for the stage.
“The tiered seating will be six, 8-foot long benches designed to be removed and re-installed as needed in concrete,” said Hall.
In a report to council, Parks and Facilities Management Director Tom Bryne said four trees were removed from Heritage Park including two dead pine trees, a cottonwood that had been hit by lightning, and an ash tree with signs of emerald ash borer disease. The new blue spruce was planted in the northeast corner of the lot and the other three trees will be replaced this fall.
•Degenhart Park – The replacement of a few worn playground equipment parts, playground mulch and edging to meet standards, sidewalk repairs, and some painting of equipment.
•Orchard Park – The replacement of one playground panel.
•Cruiser Park – The replacement of all soccer nets.
Electrical service areas/outages
On Aug. 14, Groveport City Council heard the first reading of an ordinance to renew its 25 year franchise agreement with South Central Power Company.
According to Hall, most of the city falls within the electrical service area of American Electric Power. However, she said, The Links at Groveport golf course, as well as a small area in one of the city’s industrial parks on its southern border, is within the South Central Power Company’s electrical service area.
“Both power companies have set service areas,” said Hall, who added that any changes to these established service area boundaries would have to be approved by the Public Utilities Commission (PUCO).
In another electricity matter, a series of electric power outages in the city earlier this summer prompted American Electric Power (AEP) to review the entire electrical circuit in Groveport to check for problems.
The power outages ranged from several hours on June 18 (due to a tree falling on a power line in the old part of town) to shorter “blips” where the power went out momentarily and then came back on.
According to city officials, some of the city’s electronic equipment suffered about $10,000 in damage following those outages.
“The service issues we were experiencing in Groveport were investigated (by AEP),” said Hall. “They could not find a cause. However, we don’t seem to be having the same problems currently.”
She said AEP installed tracking devices to enable them to identify the problems if they were to happen again in the future.
