Plans taking shape for drive-in theater site

WINTERSVILLE -- The Winter Drive-In might have shown its last movies Wednesday night, but the new owners of the 16 1/2 acres of land it occupied on Luray Drive say the property soon will have a new use that will generate dozens of jobs for the region.

That's the goal of Butch's Rat Hole and Anchor Services, the Texas-based company that now controls the property.

"We want to get everybody over here as soon as possible," Ryan McMillan, a partner in Butch's, explained Wednesday morning. "We have 23 or 25 employees that we want to bring in and we would love to hire another 12 or 15."

McMillan offered an overview of his company's plans for the facility during an informal meeting in the offices of Cedar One Realty, whose owner, Joe Luckino, helped facilitate the sale. Also on hand were several local officials as well as representatives from the Jefferson County Port Authority and Ohio Southeast Economic Development.

Butch's, McMillan explained, was founded in 1980 and is a service provider to the oil and gas industry. It has more than 900 employees spread among six states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania

The company, he said, currently operates facilities in Toronto, Cambridge and Eighty-Four, Pa. That made the village the perfect place to consolidate those operations.

"What worked well for Wintersville was that it was about an hour from each place. This area is very central to where we are seeing the activity picking up," McMillan said.

Toronto was among the locations Butch's acquired through its March merger with Express Energy Services. Jobs of the employees at the Toronto location, which has been operating out of the former home of J&J Chevrolet at 1515 Franklin St., will be moving to Wintersville in the near future.

Among the 12 service lines Butch's offers is the drilling of rat holes.

"For a rat hole," McMillan said, "we drill the first 100 feet for a new drill, a new rig. It's much more economical for us to go out and drill that pilot hole and the big rig to move over it than it is for the rig to set up there and drill from scratch.

"We'd like to move more services up here and bring more business up here," McMillan added. "Obviously, with gasoline at $3 a gallon, things in the business are picking up again. That's shown by the fact that none of my managers could make it up here today -- they are all out on jobs."

Encino Energy, Jefferson County Commissioner Tony Morelli pointed out, spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the county in the past year.

About half of the jobs that are expected to be created will require persons to have a commercial driver's license. The rest, McMillan said, will be able to be filled by people who have no prior experience in the oil and gas industry but who are "willing, able and wanting. That's hard to find right now, across the country, not just in the oilfields."

Work done by the company requires a special mindset, and it is not for everybody. That's why he said it's best for potential employees to meet with the company's managers and learn about the expectations before they are hired.

"The oilfield is a true service business where you can get called on Friday and they will want you out there in three or four hours. That's tough on a lot of people, especially if you are thinking, 'Hey, I kind of had plans,'" McMillan said.

"I want everybody to be prepared for that before they come in, otherwise it's an unpleasant deal when they say, 'Hey, this isn't what I signed up for,' and we've already sunk a lot of money into training them and making sure they are safe. We try to avoid that. There are certain things that require a skill set, but with a lot of our stuff, we can build those people up. My adage is I will take want to over can do any day of the week."

The company, he added, wants to hire locally every chance it gets.

Evan Scurti, a consultant with the port authority, and Ed Looman, manager of engagement and partnerships with Ohio Southeast, said they were excited to know Butch's has seen the potential in Jefferson County and is willing to bring new jobs into the area.

It's expected that Butch's presence in the community will increase during the next 45 to 60 days, McMillan explained. He said Ross Falvo, who owned and operated the drive-in, will need about 30 days to clear his equipment out of the facility, and it will take about 30 days to get all of permits that will be needed to prepare the property for its new use. He said he'd like to have everything completed by winter.

Plans are to keep the building that serves as the concession stand at the drive-in in place and remodel its 5,000 square feet into offices. An 80-foot-by-160-foot structure will be built adjacent to that existing building to provide an area where the company's trucks can be serviced. The company, he said, is big on its appearance and has put a priority on how its trucks look and how its yard looks.

McMillan said he and Butch's are sensitive to the fact that their new home in the village will replace the drive-in, which has become a fixture in the Tri-State Area during its 50-year-or-so run.

"When I was up here doing an inspection, I heard 'My parents brought me here and I brought my kids here,'" McMillan remembered. "As that transitions, we want to continue to be a staple in the community the way the drive-in has been through the years."

That's important, he added.

"There's a lot of history there," McMillan said. "Now, I want to make sure the marquee stays. I want to keep as much of the type of feeling that it has today going forward."