GROVE CITY — GE Transportation continues to expand in Mercer County as a part of a $72 million investment.

In December 2011, the company spent $35 million to buy a 240,000-square-foot building a few miles from the current GE plant to establish a new remanufacturing facility. The building formerly was the Reynolds Food Packaging plant, which closed in October 2011.

The new facility was established partially because of the need for diesel-powered locomotives to comply with more stringent federal Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards, which began in 2012. Even stricter standards will be put in place in 2015.

GE spokeswoman Ann Miller said it also is designed to meet increasing demand and to better control processes and costs.

“The new remanufacturing is helping us better serve our customers by enabling the engine team to more specifically tailor the processes to the needs of each individual engine,” Miller said.

The new facility was under construction for most of 2012. Employees began working there in October and began disassembling engines in December.

The plant has 15 employees. But Miller said GE will hire 60 to 80 new employees for the plant by April and then transfer 100 to 120 current employees from the older plant by October.

The original plant employs 900 people.

GE also invested $37 million into manufacturing upgrades at its original plant. This included constructing a new facility to test engines and a new test lab for computerized inspection of mechanical systems and emissions testing.

The Grove City area project is part of a $400 million investment that GE is making to upgrade its facilities. This includes a $191 million investment at its plant in Fort Worth, Texas, and a $136 million investment at its Erie plant.

In December, GE announced that it signed a memorandum with TransMashDiesel and JSC National Company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy to start a diesel engine manufacturing plant in Astana, Kazakhstan. The plant is expected to be operational by the end of this year.

Miller said the Kazakhstan facility will not have a significant impact on the Grove City plants.

In 2009, GE cut 200 employees from the Grove City plant as a part of a cost cutting program. In 2010, GE brought 30 of those workers back and in February, GE brought 100 more workers back.