Fair-Play Scoreboards to move out of Iowa
After 93 years in Iowa, Fair-Play Scoreboards will no longer be manufactured in Des Moines.
Trans-Lux Corp., which acquired the family-owned company in 1997, will move the scoreboard manufacturing operation to a new 66,000-square-foot factory under now under construction in a suburb of St. Louis, the St. Louis Business Journal reported.
“We’ve been in Des Moines for 93 years; it was tough decision,” Trans-Lux President and CEO J.M. Allain said in an interview with the Business Record. “We would have loved to stay.”
The decision was driven by a sweeter economic development package from Missouri than Iowa could offer.
“It came down to we needed to build a new factory, and St. Louis and the state of Missouri provided significant incentives, and the state of Iowa and Des Moines did not have nearly the same opportunities for us,” Allain said.
Allain said Trans-Lux officials met several times with Iowa and Des Moines officials regarding a potential package. He declined to detail what Missouri is providing in incentives; state officials could not be immediately reached for that information.
Fair-Play was founded in Ida Grove in 1934 and has produced scoreboards at its Des Moines plant on the east side since 1954.
Allain said some Des Moines employees will move to St. Louis to work at the new facility, which will be located at an industrial park in Hazelwood. The mixed-use industrial park is being constructed on the site of a former Ford Motor Co. facility, according to the St. Louis Business Journal.
Trans-Lux, which is based in New York City, will maintain a small office in Des Moines with professional staff that will include its research and development personnel, Allain said.
Allain also said he was disappointed his company didn’t receive the scoreboard contract for Wells Fargo Arena, which was instead awarded to a South Dakota company.
“It comes down to business climate,” he said. “We are going somewhere we feel is more friendly to our type of business.”
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