Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 27, 1995 TAG: 9504270045
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLIFTON FORGE LENGTH: Medium
Bacova Guild Ltd., a Bath County designer and maker of decorative home furnishings, confirmed Wednesday it was looking seriously at Alleghany County as a site for a manufacturing plant that would employ between 250 and 500 people.
Both company and county officials said Bacova was considering a site in the new, 300-acre Alleghany Regional Commerce Center about midway between Covington and Clifton Forge.
Easy access to Interstate 64 and Alleghany County's abundant work force will be factors in the company's decision, said Bacova Chief Executive Officer Pat Haynes.
He said the company expected to announce details for its expansion - including at least 100,000 square feet of new plant - in the next two weeks. Financial details of the expansion, including whether the company might get state incentives for the project, were not available Wednesday.
Bacova, founded in 1965 and purchased last year by Burlington Industries Inc. of Greensboro, N.C., produces decorative scatter rugs, doormats and personalized fiberglass mailboxes. It has about 550 employees, 350 of whom work in Bath County with the remainder in Dalton, Ga. The company said the new jobs will offer workers a potential starting salary of $6.50 an hour if production incentives are met.
The company's new plant also will have some engineering and supervisory jobs, Haynes said, and would produce the same items now made at the company's other facilities.
The move would be good news for Alleghany County, where the unemployment rate was 5.3 percent of the work force in February, the latest available statistic from the Virginia Employment Commission. In the same period, Bath County's jobless rate was 13 percent, but it is subject to wide seasonal swings related to tourism. The statewide rate was 4.5 percent in February.
Haynes said Wednesday that the company has been talking with both Alleghany and Bath County officials about sites for the expansion.
The company also has been considering a site in the Bath County Industrial Park.
"There may be some middle ground where we'll do something on both sites," Haynes said Wednesday.
Since 1991, Bacova's gross sales have increased from $17 million to $40 million. Glynn Loope, executive director of the Alleghany Highlands Economic Development Authority, would confirm only that Bacova has looked at the Alleghany County site.
If Bacova selects the Alleghany County site, it would be the first occupant of the new industrial park.
Bids are to be opened Friday for a new bridge across the Jackson River leading to the Alleghany Regional Commerce Center, located at Low Moor off Interstate 64.
Planners said they hope to run water and sewer lines to industrial sites at the same time as the bridge work.
by CNB