84 Lumber shutters 12 stores
Industrial Distribution staff -- Industrial Distribution, 12/7/2007 9:15:00 AM
84 Lumber Co. closed 12 stores in nine states in an effort to cut costs in the face of the ongoing residential housing slump, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.The moves comes days after the Eighty Four, Pa.-based building materials distributor cut 40 positions at its headquarters operation; the company also laid off 26 headquarters employees last June. Including the most recent cuts, its head count dropped from roughly 800 workers to about 650.
It’s the latest round of closings for the company. In October it shut down two branches in the St. Paul and Minneapolis region, citing the absence of construction activity there. Those branches employed 34 people.
And last year 84 Lumber shuttered more than 60 locations in rural areas or regions with mature housing markets.
But the news isn’t all bad for the distributor, which announced the opening of four new branches and a truss plant last month.
Spokesman Jeff Nobers told the newspaper that only two of the most recent closures were the result of slow housing starts in those regions—Redding, Calif., and Manchester, Tenn.
Five of the closings—in Loveland, Ohio, Palatine, Ill., Ellicott City, Md., Amsterdam, N.Y., and Granite City, Ill.—occurred in areas served by a number of locations that could absorb the business.
The remaining four involved relocations of existing stores to larger locations nearby: Greensboro and Pineville, N.C., Columbia, S.C., and Slidell, La. A store in Merced, Calif., is being converted into a structural components plant.
The move affects roughly 100 workers, but Noble told the newspaper many are expected to move to new jobs at other 84 Lumber sites.
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