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October 15, 2020

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BY GUY LUCAS

GUYLUCAS@NEWSTOPICNEWS.COM

A state grant will help pay for renovations of the former Broyhill upholstery complex in Lenoir, where a Taylorsville-based company recently began production.

The North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority announced Thursday a $500,000 building reuse grant to the city of Lenoir to support Craftmaster Furniture’s renovation of a 412,554-square-foot building.

Roy R. Calcagne, president and CEO of Craftmaster, reiterated in a prepared statement the company’s plans to have more than 100 employees there by mid-2021.

“We are excited to be expanding our business into Caldwell County, where furniture manufacturing has been providing local families with great paying jobs for more than a century,” he said. “We will be adding experienced upholsterers, sewers and frame builders over the next several months.”

The upholstery complex was purchased by Craftmaster’s parent company, Samson Holdings, in 2018 for $4.75 million after the bankruptcy of Heritage Home Group. It includes warehouses used by Baker Furniture, Lega- cy Classic Furniture and Grand Manor, which are sister companies to Craftmaster.

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October 1, 2020

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Sep 30, 2020 5:08 PM

Caldwell County’s largest private employer announced a $120 million expansion project Wednesday that could create 111 new jobs.

Merchants Distributors Inc. plans to expand its facilities by adding a 200,000-square-foot building to its grocery distribution complex just east of U.S. 321 in a portion of southern Caldwell County that is within the Hickory city limits. The project will include the installation of sophisticated logistics technology and automation, according to a press release from Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

The state’s Economic Investment Committee approved on Wednesday a Job Development Investment Grant that could reimburse MDI up to $1.344 million of its investment over 12 years, based on the new tax revenues generated by the new jobs the project creates.

The Caldwell County Board of Commissioners voted in May to offer job-creation incentives of $2,000 for each job created up to 111 jobs, as well as for each job retained up to 120, for a total of $462,000.

At the time the commissioners voted on incentives, the company was not identified as MDI but only as Project Jorgai because North Carolina was competing with South Carolina and Georgia to land the project. Competitive state grants call for the confidentiality of a project until a final decision is made.

The commissioners also approved a 75 percent tax grant for 10 years, which will give back to the company 75 percent of the property taxes it pays on the new value created by its investment.

The new jobs will have an average annual salary of $51,634, higher than the county’s overall average of $40,124, according to the press release.

Over the course of 12 years, the project is estimated to grow the state’s economy by $305.5 million, the governor’s office said.

Brian George, chairman and CEO of MDI, said that the company’s local roots helped make the decision on where to expand.

“We are excited to continue to grow in Hickory where we were founded nearly 90 years ago,” he said.

Randy Church, chairman of the Caldwell County Board of Commissioners, said that Hickory also offering incentives was important to securing the expansion, though a final vote has not been taken.

The Hickory City Council will vote in October on a $500,000 infrastructure grant related to the new construction project. City Manager Warren Wood said that city officials wanted to match the incentives offered by Caldwell County.

Wood said that the city council will also vote on an investment grant that could provide $3.9 million over eight years.

The MDI expansion will be second only to Google’s $600 million data center expansion in its size and impact on the Caldwell County economy, said Deborah Murray, the executive director of the Caldwell County Economic Development Commission. She said that it provides a sense of encouragement and relief during a period of economic uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s exciting that even in these times you have this kind of investment and growth and vision,” she said. “This is our largest private employer, and their value to us has been well-illustrated. It couldn’t be better timed.”

Reporter Garrett Stell can be reached at 828-610-8723.

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October 1, 2020

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By Guy Lucas
guylucas@newstopicnews.com

Sep 30, 2020 11:10 AM

The start of the new school year in August helped drive local unemployment rates down across the state, but locally employment in other sectors of the economy held even overall, according to a new state report.

Caldwell County’s unemployment rate dropped 2.3 percentage points to 7.3% in August, the N.C. Labor and Economic Analysis Division reported.

Neighboring counties showed similar drops – 1.9 points to 6.3% in Burke and 2.2 points to 7.0% in Catawba – but across the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton metropolitan statistical area that was almost entirely driven by government job gains, the report said. Government employment across the region climbed by almost 2,000 from mid-July to mid-August as schools prepared for the beginning of the new school year on Aug. 17.

Overall employment remained about 16,000 jobs lower across the region than it was in August 2019, and even government employment was about 800 jobs lower, the report said.

Deborah Murray, the executive director of the Caldwell County Economic Development Commission, said it is difficult to interpret employment reports with any degree of certainty because of the pandemic-related shutdowns, some of which are now in their fifth month. But she said that Caldwell’s unemployment rate improved relative to other counties, moving up from 83rd to 78th out of 100 counties.

Also, reversing a trend from recent months, the local labor force – the combined number of those who have jobs and those actively searching for jobs – dropped sharply from July to August, declining by more than 1,200 to just under 34,000 in Caldwell, by a similar number to just under 39,000 in Burke, and by about 2,500 to just over 73,000 in Catawba.

A declining labor force often is seen as a sign of discouragement among the unemployed because some have stopped looking for work and no longer are counted in the labor force.

Murray said it was unclear how to interpret that decline this time.

“This report is typical for August in that the number unemployed always decreases from July to August. (But) While the number unemployed month over month reduced substantially, so did the labor force,” she said. “The significance of those numbers will be seen more clearly as we receive the September and October reports.”