Washington council approves Bazooka Farmstar site plan

The Washington City Council unanimously approved a major site plan from Bazooka Farmstar.

Bazooka Farmstar Human Resources Manager Amanda Russell said the expansion would improve the facility’s efficiency.

“The current facility provides constraints for us to assemble our stuff efficiently,” Russell said. “We’ve added product lines, too, and we need more bay space in order to assemble that. We are just jamming product lines into the same cells. This will allow us to have all the different product lines in their own cells, so it will allow us to spread out over the space instead of sitting on top of one another.”

Russell said the expansion would add a retention pond, production space and a pond where the equipment can be tested on water, rather than shipping it away for testing. The expansion will require new sewer connections at the facility, located at 800 East Seventh Street.

City Administrator Brent Hinson said the site plan required approval from the Planning and Zoning commission before it was approved by council, despite not requiring any rezoning.

“They’re adding the 37,500 square feet of production space,” Hinson said. “We’ve had several different things leading up to this, but basically they’re doing a major expansion, and so they have to do a site plan, and Planning and Zoning is part of that. and that’s what was approved tonight.”