BY CHRISTINA M. SEILER, News Editor, The Rochester Sentinel
Frick Services in Leiters Ford plans an expansion that will cost as much $2.5 million.
It plans to add 600,000 bushels of grain storage capacity with three new bins, one of them a 30,000-bushel wet storage bin and the other two 300,000-bushel bins for dried grain. A tower dryer also is planned.
The company, owned by Dan Frick, began operating in Leiters Ford in 1918. The improvements are necessary to keep up with the changing world of agriculture and the requirements caused by the growing ethanol industry.
The company is asking the county for a 10-year tax abatement on the new equipment and machinery.
It currently has 30,000 bushels of storage capacity. It's ProTech crop consulting services is contracted to test and soil map 35,000 acres with global positioning satellite technology and provide related services.
The Fulton County Council on Tuesday approved a resolution to declare the Frick property - under the name Buckeye Ag Service Properties - an economic revitalization area.
That's the first step in the abatement process. The vote was 6-0-1, with council president Jim Widman abstaining because he is a Frick customer.
The actual abatement will be voted on next month, when the council also will hold a public hearing on the request.
Fred Day manages the business. He told the council Frick Services currently employees nine full-time workers, six of them with college diplomas. "We are one business that is drawing them in, and will continue to draw them in," Day said. Four new positions will be created by the expansion.
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