Monday, December 17, 2007

WestPoint plant to close its doors

Opelika will face the end of an era in August.

May 30, 2007

Opelika will face the end of an era in August.

The Opelika Finishing Plant - the city’s last WestPoint textile mill - will close by Aug. 31, putting approximately 350 employees out of work, corporate officials in WestPoint Home’s New York office announced Tuesday.

The closure is part of the company’s continued efforts to expand its operations overseas, according to Carolyn D’Angelo, senior vice president of corporate marketing for WestPoint Home.

“This is not something that came out of the blue,“ D’Angelo said. “It was planned in conjunction with our growth overseas.“

WestPoint officials had closed two other plants - one in Opelika and one in Lanett - in November.

D’Angelo declined to comment on the specifics regarding how the jobs would be reallocated; however, industry publications noted the company’s acquisitions of textile companies in Pakistan and the Middle Eastern nation of Bahrain last year.

In a news release, company officials said they had “applied for assistance for terminated associates from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Act of 1974.“

Opelika Economic Development Director Al Cook said the closure, while “unfortunate,“ came as no surprise.

“It’s been a done deal for a long time,“ Cook said. “All you have to do is read the tea leaves. This whole textile-related industry - not just (in) Opelika, but also Valley, Alex City, Sylacauga, everywhere where there’s a predominant textile industry - has been a dying industry over the last 10 years.

“It’s really unfortunate, but it’s a testament to Opelika employees and management that they were able to last as long as they did,“ Cook said.

It is unclear what will happen to the plant itself. D’Angelo confirmed that some of the previously closed plants have been put up for sale, although she declined to comment about the status of negotiations regarding those plants.

Whether the Opelika property will be put up for sale is “not something we would release at this point,“ she said.

Cook said city officials do their best to match prospective industries they are recruiting with available facilities, and those efforts would include the WestPoint plant, if it was to be put on the market.

“Eighty percent of all the new companies that we come in contact with in some point of their search process consider available facilities,“ Cook said. “...Certainly, we would use all our efforts to fill the facility and to find someone to take it if (WestPoint officials) choose to market it.“

Cook said that if there is a silver lining to Tuesday’s announcement, it is that the local economy is thriving and that new industries coming to the area have yet to begin their hiring processes.

“We’re hopeful that the affected people will be able to find employment in the area,“ Cook said.

“Obviously, WestPoint is one of Opelika’s oldest industries, and it’s always a sad day when one of your oldest industries closes, but again, we’ve been very successful in the recruitment of new industry and expansion of existing industry.

“There are jobs out there, and there are going to be more jobs.“

Financial reports from American Real Estate Partners, the owners of WestPoint International Inc., indicated that its home fashion division suffered an operating loss of $39 million in the first quarter of 2007. The division’s operating losses in the same period in 2006 were $38 million, the reports said.