
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 6, 1991                   TAG: 9104060063
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

COUNCIL OKS LOAN TO AID FURNITURE COMPANY'S GROWTH

Town Council approved a $17,500 loan from federal money Friday to Virginia Church Furniture Inc., part of a $150,000 package to help the Pulaski manufacturer expand its operations and jobs.

The financing would allow Virginia Church Furniture, which has 22 employees, to add 18 more over the next four years. Its plant makes pews, pulpits, chairs, tables and other church furniture.

The planned expansion is based on the decision of a competitor, with annual sales of $12 million, to discontinue making church furniture. Virginia Church Furniture hopes to absorb some of that abandoned market.

The town's part of the loan comes out of Urban Development Action Grant funds, including $12,500 through the Western Virginia Revolving Loan Fund and $5,000 from a separate note.

The action-grant funds that the town has available are those being repaid from earlier loans by Pulaski Furniture Corp. and Magnox Pulaski. The money is designated for industrial development only.

The $12,500 serves as the local match for another $37,500 to come from the Western Virginia Revolving Loan Fund. A $75,000 loan is to come from Sovran Bank, and the company itself will invest $20,000 in the expansion.

Virginia Church Furniture has already hired four new salespeople, and expects them to add as much as $1.6 million in sales volume per year.

The loan package would provide permanent working capital, equipment financing and fixed-asset improvement financing to fill these orders. The various parts of the loan depend on approval by all other participants, but no problems are anticipated.

Council's action at the special 7:30 a.m. meeting followed a 45-minute closed session.

The governing body's last loan from action-grant funds came last Nov. 6 when council agreed to provide $400,000 of an $800,000 loan to Jefferson Mills to get the yarn-processing plant through a business slump and preserve its 350 jobs in Pulaski. Pulaski County made the other half of the loan, which was accompanied by a $1 million loan from Signet Bank.

Pulaski Town Manager Don Holycross said Friday that Jefferson Mills' last quarterly report showed its business ahead of projections made at the time of the loan.

by CNB