Deere Plans $90 Million Cedar Valley Upgrade

By Pat Kinney, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa

Feb. 28–MOLINE, Ill. — John Deere, in its 90th year in Waterloo, has given the city a big anniversary present — a $90 million expansion project.

Deere officials in Moline, Ill., announced today the company will invest an additional $90 million in Waterloo facilities over the next two years, with plans to expand manufacturing capacity for large, high-horsepower tractors.

The project announced today follows a multi-year investment by Deere of more than $140 million to improve its manufacturing facilities in Waterloo, including Deere’s largest tractor factory in the world.

That redevelopment , announced Dec. 7, 2000, and nearing completion, focused on the downtown Westfield Avenue site and East Donald Street Tractor Works.

The new improvements will be substantially completed by early 2010, the company said. The investment will include additional machine tooling, new manufacturing technology, and improved work processes as well as replacement of the current paint system.

The project will not add floor space but will increase capacity to build big tractors by about 25 percent.

The work will begin this year, company spokesman Ken Golden said. The work will be mostly at the East Donald Street Tractor Works but some activity will occur at the Product Engineering Center in Cedar Falls.

“We do not anticipate any significant addition to jobs because the improvements are in tooling and processes, the methods of how we build machines,” Golden said. However the company has been hiring above the rate of retirements at the Waterloo operations for several years.

“Agricultural markets overseas continue to grow, and those markets require the high-tech machines built in Waterloo,” Golden said.

Employees said the company already has been purchasing equipment in preparation for the expansion.

Union officials cheered the news.

“It’s a positive development in a long string of positive developments,” said Jerry Northey, president of United Auto Workers Local 838 in Waterloo, which represents Deere workers.

“Anything the company does is good for us,” said Mike McRoberts, a UAW Local 838 shop chairman. “It shows they want to stay in Waterloo and help us be part of the future.”

Tractors built in Waterloo are exported to more than 130 countries. They are designed at the Deere Product Engineering Center in Cedar Falls.

At the time of the 2000 redevelopment, company officials projected Deere’s total investment in Waterloo would top $500 million over several years if research and development efforts were included. As a result of the redevelopment, Deere donated $17.4 million in land, buildings, technical assistance and financial resources to nonprofit group for the creation of the Cedar Valley TechWorks on former portions of the company’s Westfield site.

Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com

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