HAMLET — The Richmond County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a request to deed a piece of property to a local manufacturer making its third expansion in as many years.
Impact Plastics will be adding 50,000 additional square feet to its Hamlet facility, County Manager Bryan Land told commissioners.
The 0.865-acre strip of county-owned land sits between Impact Plastic’s property and the CSX railroad easement, Land explained.
“This property is needed to meet codes and setback requirements,” Land said. “It’s getting close to that point where they’re going to break ground.”
Land added that the deeding was a procedure the county has done in the past with other industries.
The Connecticut-based company — which specializes in high-efficiency, tight-tolerance, thin-gauge extruded sheet and roll stock… with an offering of thermoplastic resin materials that are highly customizable and suitable for a variety of end-use applications — has called Richmond County home since 2005, when it opened a plant on County Home Road north of Hamlet.
Impact Plastics announced in 2019 a $13 million expansion. The following year, the company moved into a second location — the county’s fifth shell building — in the Rockingham West Industrial Park.
Economic Developer Martie Butler said she did not yet have expected job numbers or investment figures as of Tuesday evening.
Land said he and Butler are working on eight active projects — “probably the most we’ve had in a well over a decade at one time.”
In other economic development news, Land said that Phoenix, Arizona-based Cavco Industries is in the process of acquiring Volumetric Building Companies’ facility in the Richmond County Industrial Park just south of Hamlet.
According to its corporate website: “Cavco is a leading designer and builder of systems-built structures including manufactured homes, modular homes, commercial buildings, park model RV’s, and vacation cabins.”
Cavco has 19 manufacturing facilities across the United States and distributes to retailers in this country, as well as in Canada, Mexico and Japan, according to the website.
“As this is hot off the press, we have very limited information,” Land said during his report to commissioners later in the meeting.
Land added that Cavco plans to retain all of the current employees and is looking at the possibility of expanding and bringing even more jobs to the county.
VBC announced in 2019 that it was acquiring the former Ritz-Craft plant, with plans to add 130 jobs.
Land also said that Economic Development is preliminary discussion regarding the county’s sixth shell building.
“We are stalling just a little bit because construction prices are through the roof,” Land said.
The first four shell buildings are occupied byGeneral Glass, CAI Inks, Latham Pool and Piedmont Natural Gas — all in the Rockingham West Industrial Park.
Butler said the sixth would go in the Richmond County Industrial Park near Laticrete.
