The long-anticipated completion of the expansion of the Progressive Foundry in Perry was marked Monday morning with a ribbon cutting ceremony and tours for interested community members.
In the three years since the Perry City Council voted to vacate the block of Second Street between Bateman and Rawson streets, the foundry has added 14,000 square feet of production area, said Darek VanKirk, who with his brother, Kirk VanKirk, and son, Jackson VanKirk, greeted the well wishers Monday.
“We can’t thank this community enough for supporting us,” said Darek VanKirk. “The acquisition of Second Street has done more than we expected.” He called it “a win-win” for both city city and the Progressive Foundry.
“Once again, it all comes from closing Second Street,” he said.
The company’s three-phase, $1.8 million factory expansion also means more space for staff members, a larger lunch room, a training center and locker rooms and showers both for men and women. The final phase saw the replacement of the old front offices at First and Rawson, although new offices were not part of the original vision, according to Kirk VanKirk.
“I’ll tell you how they all came about,” he said. “You know, Darek and I were so used to walking into those old offices, and they were kind of beat up, but they worked. Then Jackson comes on board, and he says, ‘These are 1950s. When are we going to change?’ And honestly, Darek and I really didn’t want to spend the time or the money to do it, but we ended up doing it, and it’s been a great, great thing.”
The new offices include two board rooms, seven private offices, cubicle space, an exercise room and a full kitchen.
The 104-year-old Perry business produces cast iron products for agriculture and industry and employs about 100 workers. It was founded in 1918 by Richard Tietgen of Chicago, who made castings for both of Perry’s washing machine factories in the basement of the At Last Washer Co. on First Avenue between Rawson Street and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad tracks.
Kirk and Darek’s father, Dallas “Pete” VanKirk, started as a core maker in Decatur, Illinois, in 1963 and moved to Perry in 1965 to work as plant manager of the Progressive Foundry. He purchased the factory in 1980 and kept an eye on its operations until his death in 2016. His grandson, Jackson VanKirk, who studied chemistry and metallurgy at Luther College in Decorah, in now the third generation at the family firm.
“A thousand thanks to the city of Perry and the people of Perry and to our workers here at the Progressive Foundry,” Jackson VanKirk said Monday.
Numerous well wishers enjoyed Perry Perk coffee and Mollie Row cookies while touring the swank new offices and high-tech production facilities.
