By STEVE CAHALAN \/ La Crosse Tribune
\nWHITEHALL, Wis. \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Plans are in the works for a 60,000- to 70,000-square-foot expansion of Ashley Furniture Industries Inc.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Whitehall plant that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t likely to increase employment, city officials said.
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\nThey hope the company eventually decides on a second, larger expansion that could add hundreds of jobs.<\/p>\n
The Whitehall City Council will vote Tuesday on creating an 800-acre tax incremental financing district to pay for infrastructure improvements for the Ashley plant expansion as well as other future development in the area.<\/p>\n
In February, Whitehall officials said Ashley was considering adding more than 200,000 square feet to its 74,000-square-foot Whitehall furniture factory. They said the plant has about 350 employees, and could add 400 employees with the expansion.<\/p>\n
Ashley Chairman Ron Wanek told the Tribune in February that expanding the Whitehall plant \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is a consideration, but it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a definite expansion plan. We are looking at possibly putting this in North Carolina or South Carolina.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wanek was traveling last week, and not available for comment.<\/p>\n
City Administrator Lynn Johnson said Friday he believes the larger project discussed in February \u00e2\u20ac\u0153has been put on the back burner for the time being\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for various reasons, such as the economy and foreign competition. He said he hopes Ashley eventually decides to go ahead with that project, and to locate it in Whitehall.<\/p>\n
The city planning commission recently was told a smaller expansion is in the works that would not increase employment.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is not a totally done deal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Johnson said Friday of the smaller expansion. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re finishing up their plans. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re working with them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The smaller expansion project essentially would \u00e2\u20ac\u0153retain the jobs we have,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Johnson said. The project also would include retooling the plant for new product lines, he said.<\/p>\n
Assuming the smaller project goes forward, Johnson said, construction could begin this fall and be completed next spring.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d heard rumors the big expansion was not going to take place as soon as was talked about earlier,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d state Rep. Barbara Gronemus,<\/p>\n
D-Whitehall, said Friday. She added she did not know why. Gronemus said she hopes both the smaller and larger expansions occur.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m willing to help in any way I can\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to make sure state assistance is available, she said.<\/p>\n
Steve Cahalan can be reached at (608) 791-8229 or cahalan@lacrossetribune.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By STEVE CAHALAN \/ La Crosse Tribune WHITEHALL, Wis. \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Plans are in the works for a 60,000- to 70,000-square-foot expansion of Ashley Furniture Industries Inc.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Whitehall plant that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t likely to increase employment, city officials said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}