By EMMA JAMES
Shovels were gripped and dirt flew at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Ashley Furniture Home Store Distribution Center on Tuesday morning.
Located in the Hattiesburg-Laurel Regional Airport business park next to Interstate 59, the 8-acre site will be home to a 36,000-square-foot distribution facility that will serve Lamar, Forrest, Jones and Perry counties, as well as the Gulf Coast, Alabama and Louisiana.
While the current distribution site for Ashley Furniture Home Store, located in the old Kmart building on Westover Drive, is a good location, Pennebaker Enterprises co-owner Bo Pennebaker said, the new distribution center will have more efficient space and be more centralized, allowing for better access.
“It’s the difference between going into a location and making it suit your needs and developing a site specifically for your needs,” he said. “The back end of the furniture industry is critical. We serve our customers during and after they choose a product, and we take a lot of pride in doing it well.”
Tentatively scheduled to open Nov. 1, the distribution center will bring 20 jobs to Jones County initially with up to 40 possible in the future.
“The distribution center site is very significant in two ways,” Jones County Economic Development Authority President Mitch Stennett said. “It’ll provide good jobs with good employers, and it marks the beginning of a new era for the airport.”
Airport and Jones County officials hope the distribution center site will open the way for further development in the 650-acre business park, which has not had a new business on site since 1996.
“We’re hoping that if we get one, we’ll get more,” airport Executive Director Tom Heanue said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we’re making an effort to increase development in this area.”
Heanue said Hurricane Katrina opened new possibilities for the industrial park.
“After the hurricane, with the explosion of growth, people have begun to realize the potential of this area,” Heanue said. “The businesses we bring in here will provide jobs for people, and jobs are the point of growth.”
