Valley Tire planning to wheel into Cecil with new facility
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Valley Tire Co. President Jim Stankiewicz, left, and manager D.J. Marovich look at the progress already made on the site of the company’s new 57,000-square-foot commercial retail tire and heavy truck repair facility in Cecil Township.
The preparatory work done so far for the new Valley Tire Co. facility in Cecil Township.
Jim Stankiewicz, president of Valley Tire Co., talks to those gathered for the groundbreaking of the company's new facility in Cecil Township.
Valley Tire Co. is trucking to Cecil Township, and into a much more comfortable space.
“We’re moving from Bridgeville, where we had 13,000 square feet. This will have 57,000,” Jim Stankiewicz said, smiling amid the dust of the seven-acre plot being developed for his company. Valley Tire is building a heavy-duty truck and tire repair facility, and the company president was leading the ceremonial groundbreaking Friday morning on a hill off Cecil-Henderson Road.
“We bought this property in August 2011 and started work three weeks ago,” said Stankiewicz, who shuttered and sold the Bridgeville location but plans to add significant staffing in Cecil. He employed 20 in Bridgeville and said 50 will work at the new site.
Stankiewicz is shooting for a December opening for the new facility. New-Belle Construction Inc. of Belle Vernon is doing the heavy lifting.
This should be a big boost for Valley Tire, which has 18 locations in four states – Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Indiana – and employs 275 companywide. It is headquartered in Speers Industrial Park, where the company also has a Michelin truck retread tire plant. That, currently, is Valley Tire’s only operating location in Washington County.
Stankiewicz started the company in 1979 in Charleroi.
The Cecil location will feature drive-through truck bays, where repairs to heavy-duty trucks and other vehicles will take place. Tires will be sold there. D.J. Marovich will be the manager.
Valley Tire will have a neighbor, Fairfield Landscaping, in a budding business park that has yet to be named. Fairfield will be moving from a location nearby on Cecil-Henderson Road, where Nick Benlove and his son, Eli, have been operating for about 10 years. The new location will be on 32 acres, which father and son share. Eli owns Fairfield Landscaping.
“The Benloves brought me here and did all of the site work,” Stankiewicz said during the groundbreaking.
“This is a good location,” he continued. “It’s near (Interstate) 79. We’re very excited about this.”
And the extra space.