New life and about 450 jobs soon may be coming to the former Servistar Hardware complex in East Butler.
IDL Inc., a Monroeville-based supplier of point-of-purchase retail and merchandising services and products, hopes to buy the facility and consolidate its workforce from seven locations in the region at the Butler County site within a year.
"We are currently in negotiations ... but no definitive agreement has been reached," said Steven F. Nicola, chief financial officer, secretary and treasurer of Pittsburgh-based Matthews International Corp., parent of IDL.
No price was disclosed. The Butler County Assessment Office said the 12-acre site on which the buildings are located is currently assessed at $506,386.
If the purchase goes through, IDL would occupy a 150,000-square-foot office and a 500,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center, located about 7 miles east of downtown Butler.
During preliminary discussions with Butler County officials, IDL said it expected to bring about 350 employees initially to the site, said County Commissioner Glenn Anderson.
"They have advised us they hope to add 100 new employees within a year," he said.
Eventually the total jobs there could reach 1,000, Anderson said. That would be about 200 more than the 800 employed there in 1997 by former Servistar Coast to Coast Corp., when the hardware distribution company merged with TruServ Corp., the Chicago-based parent to the True Value Hardware chain.
The merged company, now known as True Value, selected Chicago as its headquarters, with more than 300 local jobs being eliminated initially. The local workforce was gradually cut back in subsequent years. The final 76 employees left in 2003 when the entire facility was closed.
Butler County Commissioner James Kennedy said he is "delighted to hear that IDL was planning to make Butler County its home."
"This means job growth for Butler, from both workers transferred here to new jobs," Kennedy said.
Anderson said he expects IDL to phase in its move.
In addition to its headquarters in Monroeville, IDL has facilities in Plum, and two sites in the Harmarville-Cheswick region in Allegheny County, and in Murrysville, Youngwood and Export in Westmoreland County.
All are leased facilities, Nicola said.
IDL designs, manufactures, manages and installs point-of-purchase and retail and merchandise solutions for stores around the world, according to Christian Wahl, IDL marketing and communications manager.
It creates a wide range of products, including marketing plans, signs, display fixtures, kiosks, check-out stands and interactive displays.
The company became part of Matthews International when Matthews acquired the Cloverleaf Group, a company formed by the merger of IDL and Big Red Rooster, a marketing and design services firm based in Columbus, Ohio.
The East Butler facility, located about 36 miles north of Downtown, still is owned by True Value. Company officials could not be reached for comment.
