The Sweetheart cup towers at the entrance to the building on Wrightsboro Road. BILL CLARK/STAFF

Giant cup is Augusta's Sweetheart

Web posted January 2, 1998

By Donna W. Rogers
Business Editor

Anyone driving down Druid Park Avenue toward Wrightsboro Road can't miss it.

The giant cup with doors at its base greets anyone trying to turn left or right as it announces the presence of the Sweetheart Cup Co. plant, near downtown Augusta.

Last month, Sweetheart celebrated the cup's 50 years in Augusta. It was built here in 1947 as a trademark for Lily-Tulip Inc., the first nontextile manufacturing company in Augusta.

``It was a New York-based company, and after the War, the Committee of 100 recruited it,'' said Charles Downs, a foreman at the plant.

The Committee of 100 was a group of business and civic leaders who worked to develop Augusta economically. The group was the forerunner of the economic development wing of the Metro Augusta Chamber of Commerce.

The cup has stood since then as the owners of the building changed more than once.

Wisconsin-based Fort Howard Corp. took over the plant in 1986 when it bought Augusta-based Lily-Tulip Inc. for $326 million.

Sweetheart Holdings Inc. acquired the cup operations from Fort Howard in November 1989 for $232.25 million in cash and $300 million in short-term notes. The deal included 15 manufacturing facilities in the United States and Canada.

Now, privately held Sweetheart, based in Baltimore, has six locations in the United States and one in Canada, Mr. Downs said. He said only one other giant cup from the Lily-Tulip days exists, at the plant in Springfield, Mo.

The Augusta plant, which has about 300 employees, produces polystyrene foam cups of various sizes. Mr. Downs said the company is the industry leader in food disposal products for the fast-food industry.

The plant, preparing for the next millennium, is forming alliances with schools of higher education in the area to help train its work force, Mr. Downs said.

And the plant's manager, Brett McGuire, was recognized last month as the Participant of the Year by the Drugs Don't Work committee of the Metro Chamber. Mr. McGuire was the committee's first chairman, serving for two years.

``The cup will continue to be more than a unique piece of architecture on the Augusta scene,'' Mr. Downs said.