Although authorities are continuing to investigate the cause of the devastating fire that gutted a 70,000 square foot inventory building at New Pig Corp. in Tipton on Halloween night, plans are continuing as the company moves forward in anticipation of a new and larger building on the site.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re shooting for six months,\u201d said Scott Diminick, plant manager at New Pig. \u201cEverything looks good for an August opening, but we\u2019re still early in the plans.\u201d
\nAccording to Diminick, the Antis Township Supervisors on Thursday gave tentative approval for a land development plan for New Pig to build a new, and larger building at the Ardie J. Dillen Industrial Park. The approval was tentative contingent on the township receiving a joint permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers.
\n\u201cThat permit should be completed (today),\u201d said Diminick. \u201cOnce the supervisors receive it, there shouldn\u2019t be a problem with them accepting it. Once that happens, we can move forward with plans to get this new building up.\u201d
\nDiminick said Ralph J. Albarano & Sons Inc. of Duncansville has been contracted to construct the building. The contractor has completed a number of projects in the area, including numerous buildings in the industrial park and the Blair County Ballpark.
\n\u201cThis group is A-rate,\u201d said Diminick. \u201cWe\u2019re lucky to have them doing the work for us.\u201d
\nDiminick said the contractor should mobilize to the site this week; however, he doesn\u2019t expect any digging to begin right away.
\n\u201cAgain, we\u2019re hoping to open the new building in August, but of course, everything is weather permitting,\u201d he said.
\nPlans call for a building more than twice the size of the previous building. Diminick said it will be about 122,500 square feet. That\u2019s a full 62,500 square feet larger than the one that burnt in October.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a high-storage warehouse,\u201d said Diminick. \u201cWe used the old building for a bunch of different things, but this one will be 100 percent storage and that\u2019s it.\u201d
\nThe fire broke out in Building Two at the containment absorbent manufacturing site at approximately 10 p.m. on Oct. 31. When the smoke cleared early the next morning, the entire contents of the building \u2013 which included the company\u2019s entire inventory, customer service area, sales area, technical services area, distribution, building and grounds and cafeteria \u2013 was amongst a pile of mangled metal and smoldering debris.
\nDuring the last week of December, Blair County Judge Daniel Milliron dictated an order which allowed several companies, all who New Pig claim could be held liable for the fire, to examine and photograph the site. These companies wanted to ensure the area was prepared correctly for when inspectors arrived to try and determine what caused the multi-million dollar fire.
\nThe court arguments began when Phillips Electronics North America Corp. asked Milliron for an injunction, barring New Pig from initiating demolition exercises at the site. The demolition, which was originally to begin Dec. 23, was halted until Phillips and New Pig could provide the court with proposed work schedules so the company would not lose revenue in the time in between.
\nPhillips claimed that if demolition would have begun that day, there would be no way the company could gather their own investigators and get them to the site in time. Phillips wanted representatives there to document the demolition and come to their own conclusions concerning the origin of the fire.
\nNew Pig has claimed that a light, produced by Phillips, may have exploded and caused the blaze.
\n\u201cAll we can really say is the investigation is still continuing,\u201d said New Pig\u2019s insurance company\u2019s attorney Maureen Zemel from her Pittsburgh office this morning. \u201cWe don\u2019t have any information because there won\u2019t be a determination of what caused the fire until they take the materials from the scene and look at them in the laboratory.\u201d
\nZemel said the investigation is \u201can extensive process\u201d and that it\u2019s \u201cgoing to take some time.\u201d
\nAccording to Connie Penn, legal liaison with New Pig, companies continue to sift through the rubble.
\n\u201cThere are still people going through the building, but we\u2019re allowing them to do what they have to in particular areas,\u201d she said. \u201cBut what they are doing now is not in the way of us moving forward in the construction of the new facility.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although authorities are continuing to investigate the cause of the devastating fire that gutted a 70,000 square foot inventory building at New Pig Corp. in Tipton on Halloween night, plans are continuing as the company moves forward in anticipation of a new and larger building on the site. \u201cWe\u2019re shooting for six months,\u201d said Scott […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}