Construction of foam factory will begin soon
Thursday, August 12, 2004 7:20 AM PDT
By Courtney Sherwood
Printable version
E-mail this articleOhio-based Flexible Foam Products will invest $6 million to $7 million this fall to open a factory at Longview's Mint Farm Industrial Park, said Erik Kempf, the new plant's general manager.
Modifications to the 177,000-square-foot building, formerly owned by Prudential Steel, should start within the next few weeks and be complete by early December, Kempf said Wednesday.
The plant will make foam to be used in mattresses, clothes, cars and other commercially available products, Kempf said. Flexible Foam also will recycle foam scraps into carpet pads.
About 25 people will work at the plant when it first opens, with that number gradually increasing to 100 over the course of about a year, he said.
The Longview plant will be Flexible Foam's third to open in 18 months and the company's first major facility west of the Rockies.
The company decided to open a Pacific Northwest factory as part of an effort to increase its market share, Kempf said.
"Flexible Foam is growing," he said. "As a company, we're taking a very aggressive approach."
After looking at a number of sites between Eugene and Longview, Flexible Foam decided to buy the vacant Prudential Steel facility, Kempf said. The site, which had been vacant since 2002, sold for $5.85 million, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Prudential's parent company, Maverick Tube Corp.
The Mint Farm had the infrastructure Flexible Foam was looking for, but it was Longview City Manager Ed Ivey who sealed the deal, Kempf said.
"Ed Ivey was really instrumental," Kempf said. "He walked us through the permitting. We looked all over the place for a building that suited our needs, from Eugene to Longview. We had meetings with the city of Portland. The city of Longview did a better job."
When Flexible Foam came into the picture, the city worked with the company to help it get a needed air quality permit, Ivey said.
"We court business," Ivey said. "We literally hold them by the hand and try to walk them through the different steps that we need to go through."
-Daily News reporter Tony Lystra contributed to this story.
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