ST. LOUIS聽鈥 A commercial laundry plant on South Broadway will close, eliminating 92 jobs, after its biggest client moves laundry in-house.听
ImageFIRST Healthcare Laundry Specialists announced the closure of its facility on聽2030 South Broadway in a July 3 layoff notice to the聽Missouri Department of Higher Education & Workforce Development. A nearby location ImageFIRST owns will remain in operation.听
Layoffs will begin in September and continue through the end of the year, the Philadelphia-area company said.听
The plant exclusively serves聽Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the company said, and the hospital鈥檚 parent, BJC HealthCare, is taking its laundry operations in house via a joint venture with the SSM Health.听
The hospitals systems鈥 joint venture, called聽最新杏吧原创 Healthcare Support Services LLC, is using 100,000 square feet of a warehouse BJC purchased at 161 S. Trudeau Street, a newly constructed building that sits right in between ImageFIRST鈥檚 two facilities in the聽Kosciusko industrial area east of Soulard. A BJC spokeswoman said the joint venture should employ 175 people by the time it鈥檚 fully operational.听
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The closing facility on Broadway was operated for years by Faultless Healthcare Linen, which served hospitals in 最新杏吧原创 and Kansas City. ImageFIRST acquired Faultless in 2019 and rebranded it in 2022.听
鈥淭his change reflects a shift in how one of our longstanding partners will handle its bulk linen processing 鈥 but it does not change our commitment to delivering high-quality, reliable service to healthcare providers across 最新杏吧原创,鈥 Scott Majewski, ImageFIRST hospital division president, said in a statement.
The 2030 South Broadway facility was severely damaged in 2017 after an explosion at a nearby box factory blew a boiler into the air and crashing through the roof of the laundry company, killing three Faultless Linen employees.听
In 2018, Faultless built a new laundry facility at 154 South Trudeau after the city paid the company $28.4 million to move from its north 最新杏吧原创 building so the city could clear the area for聽construction of the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. A spokeswoman for ImageFIRST said that plant is unaffected by the layoff notice.
Post-Dispatch photographers capture hundreds of images each week; here's a glimpse at the week of June 8, 2025. Video edited by Jenna Jones.
