Wooden Pallet Recycler Opening Plant

A Grand Rapids, Mich., company specializing in recycling wooden pallets will open an operation on Zeeland's east side early next year, bringing in 60 jobs.

Kamps Pallet Manufacturing will move into the 5-acre site after the city's Planning Commission approved a special land-use permit for the property.

Kamps is buying the property from John A. Van Den Bosch Co., which once used the site as a receiving warehouse.

Kamps was looking for a location in the Zeeland area to serve its client base, which includes some of the city's largest employers.

"Herman Miller wanted us to be close by," said Bill Viveen, the company's COO.

Some of Kamps' other clients in Zeeland include Gentex Corp., Howard Miller Clock Co. and Mead Johnson Nutritionals, Viveen said.

The city's approval came despite some concerns about the project's visual impact, resulting from stacking of pallets outdoors, on neighboring properties.

"We like to bring new business into town, but it's imperative they fit in with what they're trying to do," said Keith Boonstra, of Zeeland Architectural Components, which is immediately west of the site.

Planners put in place a number of measures to try to minimize the visual impact, including requiring vinyl fencing along the property line between Boonstra's business and Kamps, as well as trees and shrubs around the perimeter. Commissioners also required all pallet repairs to occur inside the building, and put a 16-foot limit on the height of pallet stacks.

Kamps, which has annual sales of more than $50 million, employs more than 400 workers at 12 plants in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky. Thirty of the jobs at the Zeeland location will be moved from a site in Hamilton, while 30 others will be new positions, Viveen said.

The site, which is vacant, has been owned by the Van Den Bosch Co. since 1980. The company once consolidated its operations at the location after a 2002 fire destroyed its nearby birdseed processing and bagging facility.

"If we didn't have that building when we had that fire, we'd have gone out of business," company president David Van Den Bosch said. The Grand Rapids (Michigan) Press