Drexel plant shuts down
By Powell Slaughter -- Furniture Today, January 14, 2002
DREXEL, N.C. — Full-line manufacturer Drexel Heritage plans to close its case goods plant here. Production already has ceased at the 98-year-old, 250,000-square-foot facility.
The Furniture Brands International subsidiary also will relocate headquarters sometime this year from Drexel to another area site yet to be determined.
Production at the Drexel plant will move to the company's plant in Hildebran, N.C., along with about 100 of the closed plant's 270 workers. Around 90 workers will lose their jobs. Those will receive termination packages and benefits continuation as they look for other work, Drexel said.
The lumber cutting operation at the Drexel plant will continue at least through mid-2002.
"This was an extremely difficult decision given the special relationship the company has had with the Drexel community and our employees," said Dan Grow, president and chief executive officer of Drexel Heritage. "This decision is driven by the economic realities of our industry."
Grow said Drexel must balance domestic production with increased use of imported components and finished product. He noted that closure of the Drexel plant had been under consideration since well before the negotiations between LifeStyle Furnishings International and Furniture Brands that led to FBI's acquisition of Drexel.
"While eliminating jobs and closing plants is a very difficult, painful process, it is only by making these decisions that we will be able to maintain many hundreds of jobs in our plants in Burke, McDowell, Catawba and Guilford counties in North Carolina," Grow said.
