Ritz Instrument Transformers is setting up shop in the CSRA, specifically in Burke County.
Since 2010, the German company, which specializes in manufacturing low, medium and high voltage transformers, standard and customized cast-coil transformers, and electric power distribution bars, or busbars, had one production facility in the United States: a 7,100-square foot industrial building on the Hart County side of Lavonia, Ga.
In November, however, the company announced its plans to move to Burke Veterans Parkway in Waynesboro. The new site is at 1 Evercare Way, in a manufacturing facility of more than 240,000 square feet, on a lot of some 22 acres.
Despite reports late last year that Ritz received no aid from the Burke County Development Authority, CEO and general manager of Ritz USA Scott Flowers says the company has been working with the Authority since the earliest plans to move.
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“We were working with the Burke County Development Authority on that move since probably last year, or year and a half,” said Flowers.
Ritz had a factory in Waynesboro before, built in 1991, on 1 Ritz Ave. In 2006, Ritz sold the factory to French nuclear power company Areva, which was later acquired by another French company, Alstom Power. General Electric acquired Alstom Power in 2015.
In November of 2019, General Electric announced it was closing the Waynesboro plant and moving its high voltage switch gear manufacturing operations to Pennsylvania.
“We were very interested in going back and getting our old factory, and our old, trained workers back,” Flowers said.
After GE’s announcement, Flowers contacted the Development Authority about getting the building back. That attempt fell through, but the company worked with the authority, as well as the Georgia Dept. of Economic Development, to find possible locations within striking distance of the workforce.
Ritz is now leasing the Evercare building with the long-term goal of building another facility in Waynesboro after three or four years. The possibility of incentives from the Development Authority, says Flowers, would come into play when Ritz decides to take that next step.
The move, Flowers notes, is a capacity expansion. The Lavonia site, which currently has about 275 employees, will not be closing, but the new Waynesboro factory will transfer to the U.S. production operations that are currently in Germany.
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“Their move interrupted the market supplies quite a bit,” said Flowers about GE closing its plant, relieving some competition. “And we’ve been able to capitalize on that.”
Hoping to attract many of its former workers, Ritz has already started hiring for some positions at the Waynesboro location. Flowers says the new facility will start small, hiring about 25 employees at first, and projects it will add between 150 and 200 more over the next few years.
The Burke Veterans Parkway building was once the location of OneCare, formerly Evercare, which produced household items, particularly lint-rollers, and employed nearly 100 people.
Ritz took occupancy of the building on Monday, and administrators plans to start operations by the third quarter of the year.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
