NEW CASTLE Concrete company will open facility

The company is hiring 15 workers.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Some of those concrete walls along Ohio's highways will soon be made in New Castle.
Faddis Concrete Products, based near Philadelphia, will establish a facility here after landing a $2.5 million Ohio Department of Transportation contract to build sound-absorbing and sound-reflecting walls for the Cleveland area.
Don Cooper, chief executive officer, said the company is seeking a $200,000 low-interest Enterprise Zone loan from the city to help pay for about $600,000 in equipment for the new plant.
The city stands to earn about $15,000 on the five-year loan from its Enterprise Zone Revolving Loan Fund, according to John DiMuccio, city administrator.
Faddis will occupy a West Washington Street building, once the home of metal fabricators Shell Perkins.
Hiring: Eight people have already been hired and an additional seven will be hired in the next few months. The company will expand if it finds enough work and qualified workers, Cooper said.
Those experienced in pouring concrete, welding, fabricating and operating cranes and forklifts are needed.
The company will make several pre-cast concrete products in the New Castle plant, including decking for the Gowanis Expressway in New York City, crosspieces that go over doors and windows and concrete boxes used to protect electrical connections near highways.
Products going to Cuyahoga County and Delaware, Ohio, and Pittsburgh will be manufactured here, Cooper said.
Faddis has been in business since 1949 and has been manufacturing pre-casted concrete sound barrier walls for about eight years.
Site: The available industrial space and proximity to other areas made New Castle the logical choice for the company's expansion.
"To continue to be competitive, we needed to get closer to our markets," Cooper said. "We also have limits here with our crane capacity and our facility [near Philadelphia] is running close to maximum."
The Enterprise Zone loans also made the city attractive, Cooper said.
DiMuccio said the city's Enterprise Zone designation, which started in 1989, ends in June. It has applied for a new designation that would include outlying townships.
He noted that the nearly $1 million the city has accumulated in the loan fund will remain with the city, even if its zone designation is not renewed, but that money can only be used for economic development projects.