At last week's meeting of the Hudson City Council, City Manager Frank Goodroe told the Council he had learned on March first that Hager Industries arrived at an agreement on a lease-option for property in Hudson, specifically, the former Central Michigan Lumber (CML) lumber yard. Located on M-34 near Munson Hwy. "Hager has a number of facilities in Michigan," Goodroe said in his report to Council. "I understand that this site will manufacture wood pallets; these are not a basic wooden pallet, but rather sophisticated wood pallets for various industries. Hager currently has a facility in Clayton, in the former Townsend lumber Company building. The Clayton site is no longer able to meet their production needs or capacity requirements. So they have been working on site relocation for several months.

The company employs 15 people at the Clayton site, and I’m told they have a superior workforce, and retain these employees." Goodroe said that Dave Munson, outgoing director of Lenawee Tomorrow, had been working with this firm for some period of time. According to him the company does a lot of business in northern Ohio, and were considering sites in northern Ohio as well to relocate the Clayton production, which would have eliminated 15 skilled and semi skilled jobs in Lenawee County. Munson worked on identifying locations, including the Hudson Industrial park site, and the vacant CML lumber site. The company opted for the CML site, due to its ready access to M34 a class A road, and existing buildings and storage and holding areas, which could be put in use within a 90 day period. A new build would have extended the move date from Clayton by a year or more.

Goodroe said that Hagar is planning to contract with Rowley, Inc. to build out approx 10,000 square feet of space, gut and make modifications to some of the existing structures. They are reportedly looking at a 75 day occupancy time frame for the first phase. A second phase of the project will go on for approximately six months.

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