CLEARFIELD -- After 43 years of operating in the Freeport Center, Honeywell International, the company formerly known as Fram Oil Filters, is closing its Clearfield plant.
The closure, to take place over the next two months, will result in the loss of about 100 jobs, said Freeport Center Property Manager Betty Parker.
"After 43 years, they are going to be gone," said a disappointed Parker.
"It came down to freight cost. Most of their customers are back East," she said of how the plant fell victim to the economy.
Company officials made the decision to close the Clearfield plant about a month ago, but did not officially close until Friday after holding a party for its former and current employees.
It will take crews about two months to break down the plant where oil filters were manufactured.
Parker said the company, Fram Group Operations LLC, has other locations across the country that will remain in operation.
The oil filter manufacturer has a current lease on 180,000 square feet of building space with the Freeport Center that runs through August, she said.
"It's too bad about Honeywell International," Parker said.
At this time, she said, the center has no potential tenants to fill the building space being vacated.
The news of Honeywell International closing its Clearfield plant comes on the heels of a recent announcement by Lifetime Products Inc., also located in the Freeport Center, to undertake a $41 million expansion of its plastic manufacturing facility in Clearfield, resulting in the hiring of 142 new employees during the next decade.
"We've been aware of this for a few months," Clearfield City Manager Adam Lenhard said, referring to the closing.
The decision to close the Honeywell plant is part of an international restructuring and consolidation by the company, Lenhard said.
"That was a business decision on their part," he said. "We certainly appreciated the contribution (Honeywell International) made to the Clearfield community, and we are sad to see them go."
Although disappointed by the news of the closure, Lenhard remains optimistic about the momentum Clearfield is experiencing in bringing jobs to the area with the recent opening of the ATK Aircraft Commercial Center of Excellence plant in the city and the announcement made by Lifetime Products.
Lenhard said the space Honeywell International will vacate is a great space and the city, in partnership with Freeport Center officials, is pursuing ideas to fill it.
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