An advanced technology developer in Lenoir is planning to expand its footprint and operations.

Aiken Controls, which designs manufacturing control panels, scanners and sensors, plans to double its main office in downtown Lenoir, owner Chris Aiken said.

The company moved in to its current 15,000-square-foot building on West Avenue in 2016 after extensive renovations. Now, an addition of a similar size is in store on an adjacent vacant lot.

“What we’re trying to do it expand and have a place to do set-up and testing,” Aiken said.

In the new building, there would be space for a permanent testing area — essentially a showroom for the technology Aiken Controls produces. Right now, if Aiken wants to show a potential customer how a piece of equipment works, other equipment has to be moved around to make room for the demonstration.

“We’re growing out of our space,” Aiken said.

The exact plans for the building haven’t started yet because Aiken is considering including an upper floor of residential apartments.

“We’re excited about the possibility, and the city is excited about the possibility, so we’re working with them right now,” he said.

Aiken expects the addition to be done in about two years, but in the meantime the company continues expanding its business.

Over the past year, Aiken Controls has been adding products. A 3-D sensor that identifies the contents of a box and confirms all the pieces are inside that are supposed to be there, which was tested last year by Ikea, now is in regular use by five companies.

In Oregon, Aiken is designing a system to cut massive pieces of wood to make prefabricated wall panels for houses. The machine will cut 12-by-65-foot pieces of plywood up to 2 feet thick, then cut door and window holes, and all the pieces then fit together.

“It’s basically like giant Lincoln Logs,” Aiken said.

Aiken is in the process of bringing on two additional employees, too, which he’s been hoping to do since moving in to the current office space in 2016.

After being closed for a week, a two-lane bridge on Abington Road reopened Tuesday after being repaired, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said.

The bridge, which extends over Greasy Creek west of West Lenoir Baptist Church, was closed March 20 after a routine inspection found bends in the support beams, which weakened the overall integrity of the bridge, a press release said.

Crews installed new wooden supports at the center of the beams, which will extend the life of the bridge at least three to five years. Because of the repairs, NCDOT was also able to raise the weight limit on the bridge to 24 tons for passenger vehicles and 32 tons for trucks, said David Uchiyama, a communications officer with the NCDOT. Previously, the limit was 15 tons for passenger vehicles and 20 tons for trucks, Uchiyama said.

“Because it’s such a small bridge, we had the materials. We had the people. It’s just a matter of going in and getting it done,” he said. “We know how many folks use this road and that it’s important to the people who live there and drive through it, and we wanted to get it fixed us quickly as possible. We did so in a week, and in the end, it’s a better bridge than it was two weeks ago.”

The bridge was built in 1972 and has wooden support columns, steel beams, a steel floor and an asphalt top. It remains on a list to be replaced in the next two years.

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March 23, 2018

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By Virginia Annable
(Lenoir) News-Topic

Castle Bridge will not close for extensive repairs, and instead, an entirely new bridge will be built next to the existing one, the N.C. Department of Transportation announced.

That fulfills the wishes of local officials, who said NCDOT’s original plan for an extended closure of the bridge between Caldwell and Burke counties would cost jobs and businesses.

But it also more than triples the cost, from $5 million to over $15 million, said David Uchiyama, a communications officer for NCDOT’s Division 11.

After the NCDOT announced in January that the bridge, which carries Connelly Springs Road over the Catawba River, needed extensive repairs to replace its steel beams and concrete top. That would close the bridge for about a year and a half.

But the public outcry prompted local officials in both counties to pressure NCDOT for alternatives.

Now, the bridge will get minor repairs to its corroding steel beams. That work could be done with one lane at a time closed, and it close entirely close the bridge for a few days at most, an NCDOT press release said.

At a meeting between NCDOT and local officials last week, Division 13 Maintenance Engineer Mark Gibbs expressed concerned that the minor repairs might not extend Castle Bridge’s life long enough to complete construction of a new bridge.

But Uchiyama said that officials were not concerned about that possibility.

The minor repairs will cost $1 to $2 million and make the bridge last three to five more years, Uchiyama said. That’s enough time to plan, fund, study and get right of way for a new bridge, a bridge that will cost between $15 and $20 million.

The minor repairs are expected to begin in the fall still, but an exact date won’t be known until the summer.

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March 18, 2018

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By Guy Lucas
(Lenoir) News-Topic

No news, in this case, may be good news.

For the third consecutive month, Caldwell County’s unemployment rate in January was 4.5 percent, the N.C. Labor and Economic Analysis Division reported.

But since the local unemployment rate increased in 93 of the state’s 100 counties from December to January – including Burke County, where the rate went from 4.2 to 4.3 percent – and it normally increases in Caldwell County too because of seasonal factors, holding steady is a positive sign, said Deborah Murray, executive director of the Caldwell County Economic Development Commission. Catawba County’s rate held steady at 4.1 percent.

“Typically we see an increase in unemployment rates in January … but ours held steady. That is ground gained,” she said. “We begin 2018 with the largest number of people employed in 10 years.”

The total number of Caldwell residents reporting that they had jobs was just under 35,000.

Caldwell County is tied with five other counties for the 33rd lowest unemployment rate in the state, reflecting the county’s steady improvement in comparison to other counties since having one of the state’s highest unemployment rates in 2010.

That improvement is reflected in comparisons of the local unemployment rate from year to year. Murray pointed out that for January only one third of North Carolina’s counties improved since January 2017 by more than 1 percentage point, and one of those was Caldwell, where unemployment in January 2017 was 5.6 percent.

“And because we see continued strength and growth among our industries, 2018 will be a still stronger year for employment in Caldwell business and industry,” she said.