Seagrave Breaks Ground On New Plant

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Seagrave facility plans to grow

Seagrave plant to expand by 137,000 square feet

By MaryBeth Matzek

Post-Crescent business editor

March 8, 2006

Appleton, Wisconsin

CLINTONVILLE — Seagrave Fire Apparatus is moving ahead with a major expansion of its Clintonville manufacturing plant.

Company officials said Tuesday they signed an agreement with Keller Builders of Kaukauna to build a 137,000-square-foot final assembly plant on the southeast corner of the company's property.

When the project was initially announced in 2004, the city put the price of the building shell at about $2.8 million.

Seagrave chief executive officer Scott Mintier said the project is an investment in the company and the community.

"We are building this new facility to meet the increased demand for our new fire apparatus and to reduce delivery times to our customers," he said.

Seagrave employs 382 workers in this city of 4,750. The company is owned by FB Capital Partners, a private investment partnership based in Philadelphia.

"Seagrave was the first big industry here. Clintonville grew with Seagrave," said Mayor Richard Beggs. "It used to be that when (Seagrave) does well, Clintonville does well and when (Seagrave) slowed down, Clintonville slowed down.

"That's not so much the case any more since we are more diversified but we are still psychologically dependent on them for happiness. When we have good announcements there, it makes everyone feel good."

Mintier said the new building will provide Seagrave with a modern, flexible production facility that more than doubles its current production capacity.

The building will include the chassis assembly line for all fire apparatus and two final assembly lines for custom pumper and aerial trucks, he said.

The new space will include more than 16,000 square feet of engineering and research and development facilities, Mintier said.

Seagrave, which was founded in 1881 and is the nation's oldest continuous manufacturer of fire trucks in North America, garnered national attention in the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when it rushed completion of an order of replacement trucks for the New York Fire Department.

Former company president Jim Hebe first announced plans to expand its Clintonville facility in June 2004. That's when the state announced a pair of grants totaling $760,000 to relocate streets, water and sewer services, and street reconstruction work in the city's industrial park.

Those improvements also benefited nearby Walker Forge, a producer of carbon and steel forgings that has completed an expansion project of its own.

The project, however, never got off the ground and Hebe was replaced in the spring of 2005 by Mintier. On Tuesday, Mintier praised Beggs and City Administrator Lisa Kotter for their continued support for Seagrave and its expansion project.

"They assisted not only in setting up a tax increment district (TID) to help finance the construction, but also helped us to obtain approvals with a myriad of state and federal agencies," he said.