Arctic Glacier sold, shuttered

WEST POINT – A six-month rumor has become a reality in West Point. Home City Ice, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based ice company, has purchased the Arctic Glacier Premium Ice facility in West Point and informed employees the facility would be shuttered.
According to John Jones, a loader with Arctic Glacier for the past three years, said employees were informed of the closure Tuesday morning and some were offered positions with the Home City Ice facility in Ottumwa.
Others were simply told the property was closed and to please leave the property.
“I went in at 5:30 to load like I normally do. They told me to sit tight and wait because we had a meeting at 10,” Jones said.
“At 10 o’clock they called everybody and we all went into a room. We had two representatives from Arctic, one  was an HR representative and the other was a Vice President from California, and three people from Home City Ice.
Home City has a cold storage facility in Cedar Rapids, and manufacturing facilities in Des Moines and Ottumwa.
“When they came in, there was 12 of us, they offered four people jobs including a production manager, a distribution manager, and two loaders. All the drivers and stackers got jobs if they wanted to work at the Ottumwa facility.”
Jones said he was not offered any transition benefits with the closure but heard that some employees received up to five weeks severance pay.
“They told the rest of us, 'We’re closed. Please go ahead and leave the property. We’re closed for good.' I’ve been there years and I started hearing rumors of this closing about six months ago.”
Home City was founded in Home City, Ohio in the 1890s, now Saylor Park, Ohio. The company is now headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio with sales exceeding $150 million in 2015. Arctic Glacer Premium Ice was started in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1882. West Point’s Dennis Menke started Crystal Ice in the facility in 1978 and eventually sold to Arctic Ice.
Phone numbers to the West Point Arctic Glacer facility in West Point were non-functional and a call to the corporate offices were answered by a customer service representative who disconnected the call after Pen City Current identified as a news agency.
Attempts to reach Home City Ice have gone unanswered as of this posting.