It’s a tough goodbye for Hosier and many others who were employees of the plant before it closed in 2016.
About 150 workers were affected at the time of the closure. Hosier was one of several former employees who drove by the plant to relive all of the memories from their time there.
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“We made a quality product and we thought we were going to be here for forever,” Hosier said. “I raised my family on this company and it’s going to be sad to see it go.”
Planning, Zoning and Code Administrator Stephen Thompson said Moyno Inc. applied for a demolition permit on March 21.
Calls for comment to Varco about the reason for the demolition of the factory were not immediately returned.
The company made the decision to close the plant in 2015 in order to, “optimize our global manufacturing footprint,” a spokesman said in a previous statement to the Springfield News-Sun.
Carolyn Roseman lives across the street from the plant and said she has mixed feelings about the demolition. She remembers when the noise in her West Jefferson Street neighborhood wasn’t the sound of a an excavator crunching metal, but the sound of business — and she misses that.
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She recalled watching workers walk out during a strike and family members who were former employees.
“It’s just going to be vacant and it’s going to be really strange,” she said.
The plant has been empty since the closure, and it’s not clear if there are any immediate plans to redevelop the site.
Roseman said she’ll be upset to the see an empty lot across from her house.
“We were really active down through here, now you barely see anything,” she said. “I wonder why couldn’t they save the building and put another factory in there? What do they do with the land afterwards? So what goes in there?”
Moyno Inc., a subsidiary of Robbins & Myers Inc. was purchased in 2012 by Varco, a drilling equipment company based in Houston, Texas.
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