Could the sale of the SYSCO property in Hamlet happen in 2018? Starke County Economic Development Foundation Director Charlie Weaver told the county council members this week that he’s working with two prospects to purchase land at the site.
One of them would be REMC’s largest customer by several times over,” said Weaver. “It’s a 10 megawatt user. To give you a comparison, SYSCO was going to a five megawatt user. And we thought that was huge. The power user is looking to employ 47 employees with pay between $25 and $30 an hour.”
Weaver added that the other company looking at the site is a brand new company.
“It’s a new start up, often existing, company – they’re branching out. They’ve got contracts in place with some of the national firms so we’re hoping there. We’ve had several conversations with both of them. We’ll be meeting with them after the first of the year to see where we go. So far, everything has been positive.
Talks with the companies will continue in 2018 with the hopes of a land sale.
Meanwhile, officials at Gary Poppins are working to get operations started there. In previous discussions, Weaver said the company was going to begin production in December, but that has been delayed.
“The equipment itself has been ordered, but I don’t know when it’s going to get there. At the time they closed, they really didn’t have their equipment list done. They have some smaller units that will prepare popcorn on what they call specialty popcorn on short runs that will run on electric. The rest of it will be run on gas. We verified that there is a sufficient gas supply there.”
Gary Poppins occupies the former Stelrema building at the intersection of U.S. 35 and 250 N. north of Knox.
