By Greg Hinz
January 30, 2013
A Humboldt Park seat manufacturer will add up 100 new jobs as a result of a big bus order from the Chicago Transit Authority, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other officials announced this morning.
Freedman Seating Co. will make special lightweight seats required under a CTA order for 300 new 40-foot buses that will replace older models nearing the end of their useful life. The lighter design under the $8.25-million order is intended to save weight and fuel, and 140-year-old Freedman was one of two firms found capable of providing what the CTA needs.
Freedman currently employs more than 500 here. Work on filling the 11,100-seat CTA order is expected to begin this spring, with the possibility that the CTA will increase its order for buses and seats by about 50 percent.
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