Plant manager Roy Stacy said the addition was built in the 1970s. The rest of the building, which will remain, dates to the 1890s.
“The building over the years has come into quite a bit of disrepair. It’s cheaper to replace it than to try to repair it,” Stacy said.
He wouldn’t disclose the cost of the project, which will begin in spring. Contractors will tear down half of the building while O.S. Kelly maintains production and then rebuild on the same site before tearing down the other side.
The company, located at 318 E. North St., dropped from 50 employees in 2000 to less than 30 employees several years ago. But it has already hired 10 people in the past year, Stacy said. Currently the manufacturer has 33 employees, and Stacy said O.S. Kelly will most likely hire one to two workers each month.
“Our production has picked up roughly 30 percent over last year,” Stacy said.
Workers currently build seven 400 pound piano plates a day, which are sent to Steinway facilities in New York and Germany.
The piano industry as well as the overall manufacturing economy affected the plant for a while, Stacy said. When he joined O.S. Kelly in the ’70s, it employed 350 workers.
“Most American-made companies are now off shore, it’s cheaper overseas,” he said.
O.S. Kelly almost fell to the same fate. In 2000, the company lost a major contract to overseas manufacturing, said Tom Franzen, assistant city manager and director of economic development.
“They were faced with off-shoring or staying,” Franzen said.
In 2000, city commissioners agreed to give Steinway a $150,000 grant, and another $120,000 grant in 2001.
“We had an opportunity to save a company and keep operations up of a long-held manufacturing site,” Franzen said. “We were helping them stay open and preserve jobs with the hope they would keep open and grow someday.”
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