News
Employers Returning to City After Cargill Closings
Published: Monday, June 15, 2009
Frostproof rebounds with economic growth
FROSTPROOF | Gloom and doom was predicted for this Southeast Polk County city of 3,000 two years ago when Frostproof's largest employer announced that it was closing.
Lowe's: Home-imporvement retailer opened regional distribution center, employing 35.
Ferguson: The plumbing supplies giant's facility in Frostproof now employs 76.
Lemon-X: Beverage maker moved from Lakeland to Frostproof, brining in 39 jobs.
About 250 people lost full-time jobs at the sprawling 77-acre Cargill Citro plant, located between South Scenic Highway and Lake Reedy. Another 35 lost jobs at the Cargill facility in Avon Park. And those totals do not include seasonal employees.
Frostproof has rolled with the punch and rebounded.
"It could have been a devastating blow," said Mayor Kay Hutzelman. "We always snap back."
Hutzelman noted that Frostproof is the only one of 17 municipalities in Polk County that will see an increase in its tax base next year. Frostproof's tax base is projected to increase 6.7 percent. All other Polk County municipalities will see a loss, ranging from 7.3 percent in Mulberry to 26.4 percent in Davenport, according to the Property Appraisers Office.
Hutzelman said the community began planning for the loss of citrus jobs during a Chamber of Commerce retreat in 2002, although officials at that time did not think the loss would be so immediate.
"We knew that eventually citrus would not be king," she said, noting the threat of canker and other citrus diseases and the demands of development on citrus acreage.
Since then, Lowes opened a regional distribution center on the south side of Frostproof, hiring about 35. That was followed two years ago by Ferguson, the largest distributor of plumbing supplies and pipes, valves, and fittings in the United States, which employs 76 in Frostproof.
Last year Lemon-X purchased part of the Cargill site and moved the beverage company from Lakeland to Frostproof, employing 39 people.
Hutzelman said most of Cargill's employees either found jobs at the new companies or at other citrus plants in Polk County.
Tom Abrahamson, who was Cargill's general manager in Frostproof and now works in Cargill's Minneapolis office, said 95 percent of the employees who sought new jobs found them. "We tracked it," he said. "We were really happy with that. We worked real hard to help people get placed."
Larry Hadden, who worked in citrus management before the plant closed, is likely to be the last man standing at Cargill in Frostproof. Hadden is helping to liquidate Cargill's remaining asset and now works at the Cargill facility in Avon Park.
He spent 40 years at the Cargill site in Frostproof, starting in 1968 when it was owned by Ben Hill Griffin. When Proctor and Gamble purchased the facility in 1981, Hadden went to work for that company. And he remained at the site when Cargill purchased it in 1992. "I've lived the biggest portion of my life there," said Hadden, 59.
Hadden is one of five Cargill employees remaining in the area. Abrahamson said that number will drop to three in July, with the elimination of two bookkeeping positions.
"I'm in limbo, I have been for two years," Hadden said. He has had some tentative offers, but plans to stay with Cargill "until the very end."
Laura Taylor started working at the facility 26 years ago, when it was owned by Proctor and Gamble. After the closing of Cargill she found work with Lemon-X and still works in the same building as a resource planner. "There's no change in my status whatsoever," she said.
While former Cargill employees appear to have landed on their feet, the city is still trying to make up the loss of a quarter-million dollars in water revenue. Cargill was the city's largest water user.
"We certainly miss the revenue," City Manager T.R. Croley said. She said the city's bond covenants require the city have revenue that exceeds expenses by 1.2 percent for the water department. With the closing of Cargill, that requirement is not being met, she said. She said the result could be a water rate increase.
If that's the worst impact of the loss of the city's largest employer, Mayor Hutzelman won't complain. "It could have been a devastating blow," she said.
By BILL BAIR
LEDGER CORRESPONDENT
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