JEN ARONOFF
We will immediately eliminate long-distance transfers between distribution centers and the associated delivery time.
To Unifour residents, the story is familiar: For business reasons, an established furniture company decides to move operations from an area it has long called home.
But this time, there’s a difference. Instead of leaving Hickory, the company in question is moving here from Grand Rapids, Mich.
Baker furniture this week announced plans to move its corporate headquarters and create a distribution center in Hickory, bringing at least 76 new jobs by 2016.
Northwest Michigan was the center of the American furniture industry decades before North Carolina assumed that role. But after Baker’s departure, only a few remnants of that past will remain.
Wisconsin-based Kohler Co., Baker’s parent company, plans to buy the 344,000-square-foot former Corning specialty cable building off McDonald Parkway and invest $12 million in the next three years. Baker makes high-end wooden and upholstered furniture.
At the end of last year, Catawba County Economic Development Corp. President Scott Millar said filling the building was one of his major goals for 2013.
Baker will use 40,000 square feet of the space for offices and will also consolidate its two distribution centers there, creating new positions in management, accounting, administration, transportation, programming and other functions.
The operation should be up and running by this fall, though the Grand Rapids facility will not close for two more years, according to the company.
The move makes geographic and financial sense for Baker, a news release noted, because it already has five plants in Hildebran, High Point and Mocksville. The company has been planning to consolidate operations in North Carolina since 2003, and it closed its last Michigan plant in 2004. Both of its past two presidents live in North Carolina.
‘From efficiency and cost standpoints, this is a vital move,’ said Kevin Ward, president of Baker Knapp & Tubbs Inc., which includes Baker, Baker Knapp & Tubbs showrooms and Baker stores. ‘We will immediately eliminate long-distance transfers between distribution centers and the associated delivery time.’
‘The state and people of North Carolina have been exceptionally welcoming to our business,’ he noted, praising the quality of the state’s work force.
Baker will receive up to $70,350 in city incentive grants over five years, and $76,000 from the state’s One North Carolina Fund.
‘We still have it to attract good companies,’ said Ron Leitch of the N.C. Department of Commerce. ‘We hope it makes you feel good about the status of economic development. This is a great win and a great company.’
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