Higher costs kill company’s relocation plan … Manufacturer won’t bring its three dozen jobs to Twin Falls

Cathy Bixler hoped to trade mattress making for machining — and more money. Now her job-search options are back in the air.

A City Hall official said Tuesday that Hydro Fitting Manufacturing Corp.’s plan to relocate from California to Twin Falls this year fell victim to rising interest rates and construction costs, which pushed the project’s estimated cost from $2.2 million to $2.8 million for land and construction.

By Virginia S. Hutchins
Times-News writer

http://www.magicvalley.com/news/topstory/index.asp?StoryID=9914

So the manufacturer of high-precision hydraulic valves and fittings, and its three dozen jobs, won’t be coming to Twin Falls after all.

"With the recent increase in interest rates and increases in the cost of construction, (Hydro Fitting owners) the Schwartzes determined the final financing package was not as attractive as it was initially presented back in July 2003. As such they decided not to make a move at this time," said a City Hall statement released by Dave McAlindin, economic development director. "The decision not to relocate is disappointing to both the Schwartzes and to all involved in Twin Falls."

Seth Schwartz, co-owner of the Covina, Calif.-based company, declined to comment Tuesday.

The news was a blow to Bixler and the other students in the College of Southern Idaho’s new Machining Technology program. Launched shortly after Hydro Fitting announced its relocation plan, the new college course trains potential employees for Hydro Fitting and other companies that use "computer numerical control" machining processes, dubbed CNCs.

"Everybody’s pretty disappointed, because so many of us were looking forward to going to work for this company," Bixler said Tuesday. Among her classmates, she added, are some who got pink slips when a Jerome business forms plant closed last year.

The Twin Falls woman earns $8.50 per hour making mattresses and, with a second job, works seven days a week.

"This place where I’m employed at … I can only go so far and I can only earn so much, and I need to earn more money to survive," she said.

Starting wages for Hydro Fitting’s new local hires would have ranged between about $8 hourly, for building maintenance or parts deburring, and about $15 an hour, for skilled workers who program computer-guided machines, company owners said last fall. New management assistants and lathe and mill operators would have earned about $9 per hour.

Bixler will have to look elsewhere.

"I’m headed to the unemployment office after work tonight to see what they have, and until that I’ll just stay here" at the mattress factory, she said. Not expecting to find work at the other Magic Valley metals companies that do CNC work, Bixler said she might drop out of the CSI class.

Course instructor Larry Wayment, owner of Wayment Manufacturing in Filer, told his students Friday that there was doubt about Hydro Fitting’s arrival but urged them to stay in class.

"The reaction was that if Hydro Fitting would not come, understandably there were students that were counting on getting jobs from them, and they’re disappointed if that’s not going to happen," Wayment said.

"If you think you’ve got a job and it looks like you might not, it makes you a little nervous. But they’re not the only CNC company around. My encouragement to the class was to continue," he said. "There’s some real good students in there, and hopefully other companies will step forward besides Hydro Fitting" to hire them.

McAlindin said Hydro Fitting’s Seth and Johanne Schwartz reached the decision Friday. Larger debt payments on a more expensive relocation project would have eliminated the development of some new product lines that the couple hoped to accomplish in Twin Falls, he said.

"They would have been an excellent addition to our community. We respect their business decision not to relocate, but hope to have them in our community some day. We wish them the best of luck," said Jan Rogers, executive director of the Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization.

The Schwartzes continue to be cooperative with the Twin Falls people who had helped them plan the move, McAlindin said.

"They are addressing all of the issues that need to be addressed," he said. "Unfortunately from a business standpoint, it didn’t work out."

Times-News Business Editor Virginia S. Hutchins can be reached at 735-3242 or [email protected].