A full-service metal manufacturing provider will invest $9 million and create 130 new jobs over three years as it expands into the former Thomasville Furniture Industries plant in Appomattox, officials announced Friday.
Virginia MetalFab will occupy 250,000 square feet of production space in the 800,000-square-foot facility that was occupied by Thomasville until it closed its doors in 2011, which dealt a severe blow to the Appomattox economy and community.
The move will provide MetalFab with much-needed space to further expand its services and become a more integral part of the Appomattox community, Ron Martin, CEO and owner of MetalFab, said Friday.
The company, founded in 2002 and previously headquartered in Gladstone, began by making products for the equine industry but since has diversified into sectors including energy, utility and transportation, according to a news release from Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office.
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Youngkin addressed a crowd Friday after officials gathered to announce the investment. He said he was excited to stand inside the building where last year he stood outside, talking about the town coming together and getting the economy moving.
“And this is a moment that is about values and hard work, the entrepreneurial spirit, and it’s about healing. And it’s about hope and opportunity,” he said. “And that is a reason to celebrate, particularly as we stand here during the Christmas season, the season of hope. It’s a time to celebrate. And I want to start with celebrating the values, the dignity of hard work, the entrepreneurial spirit, and we can see it every day, not through words but through actions, actions of the Martin family. They speak so loudly.”
Youngkin said healing isn’t new to Appomattox as the county was at the headwaters of reuniting a nation that was divided during the Civil War.
“And yes, tough times fell on Appomattox when Thomasville moved out,” he said Friday. “We all know that Thomasville was an economic engine, if not the economic engine, as the second-largest employer here in the town of Appomattox when they shuttered their doors in 2011. Mass layoffs scared the spirit of Appomattox, and that spirit was jarred again in 2014 when hundreds of new jobs were promised that never arrived. Well, today is different. Today is about promises made and promises kept. Today is a different day.”
In 2014, a Chinese company, Lindenburg Industry, was provided a $1.4 million state grant to build a catalytic converter plant in the facility and promised to create 350 new jobs. The company never moved to Thomasville and the state failed to recover its money in court.
Youngkin said Virginia MetalFab is providing an opportunity to the next generation of high school students who are thinking about what they might do with their futures and may consider a career in manufacturing.
“These jobs demonstrate that we can attract and motivate and retain the top talent in Virginia,” he said. “And oh, by the way, we have a lot of it. Manufacturing is on the rebound and Virginia is an important player in the reshoring of critical industries back here to Virginia.”
Megan Lucas, CEO and chief economic development officer at the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance, said together with the town and its local economic development authority, they have worked with Virginia Economic Development Partnership to advance the project.
“The company’s excitement to bring well-paying jobs to the community is contagious. It has been an honor to work alongside them during this expansion and to support their growth within the Lynchburg region,” she said.
Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick also was in attendance. She said she appreciates Martin’s sacrifice and hard work to make the expansion happen.
“I am inspired by MetalFab’s culture and heart,” she said.
Martin, the MetalFab CEO, said at Thomasville Furniture’s peak, more than 1,200 people worked there. He said it was a place to put food on many people’s tables, a roof over their heads and a chance to buy their children nice Christmas gifts.
“They got to work alongside of family, friends, relatives,” he said. “Unfortunately ... that all ended, and the building closed, and it left many people without that great job and that great sense of family, and it separated them.”
Martin hopes the expansion is the beginning of filling a void that was left since the closing of Thomasville.
“The open space you see behind you is for upcoming projects that we’ve added and product lines that we’ve been wanting to get involved in simply because of space, we were not able to,” he said. “So we want today to be a catalyst that will help bring not only new jobs here but will also inspire other companies to come in and help occupy the rest of this building and to create more economic growth and opportunities and make this building become a very alive and vibrant place of this community again.”
Appomattox Mayor Richard Connor said Virginia MetalFab will employ friends, neighbors and family and is creating significant impacts for the future of the community.
“As you’re bringing manufacturing back to the community, you’re helping to bring it back to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States. I hope this will inspire other communities like ours across the nation to bring business and manufacturing back to America,” he said.