MYRTLE BEACH — More than 50 manufacturing jobs are a step closer to being located in a planned new facility in the Myrtle Beach area.
The state Budget and Control Board approved Wednesday the issuance of a $10 million revenue bond for BauschLinnemann, which will help the company expand its manufacturing jobs in the area to 55 over a two-year period in Horry County.
BauschLinnemann, which makes paper and laminate products, currently has manufacturing plants in Myrtle Beach and Conway, where 21 employees work between the two locations, said Bernhard Dupmeier, CFO and executive vice president for BauschLinnemann North America, Inc. The company also has a factory in Greensboro, N.C.
The company expects to close all three locations and combine them into a new facility that would be located on Harrelson Boulevard near the Myrtle Beach International Airport, Dupmeier said.
BauschLinnemann expects to be in the new facility by July 2013 and likely will close its Greensboro location next summer and its existing Myrtle Beach and Conway facilities at the end of 2013, Dupmeier said. The 55 jobs, including the existing 21 at Myrtle Beach and Conway facilities, will be added in two years at the new location, Dupmeier said.
Candace Howell, director of marketing & membership with the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp., would not confirm nor deny Wednesday whether BauschLinnemann is one of two companies the EDC has been pursuing to bring new manufacturing jobs to the area, stating that because of agreements with the company it has to be confidential until an announcement date.
Project BL and Project AF, the names business recruiters use when talking about the companies, would bring more than 130 new manufacturing jobs to the Myrtle Beach area, EDC’s president and chief executive officer Brad Lofton has said. The EDC plans to announce Project BL jobs sometime this month, Lofton has said.
Statewide, the manufacturing sector has been a bright spot during the past year for job creation. Manufacturing added 7,400 jobs from June 2011 to June 2012, making it the sector with the largest job growth, according to the latest statistics from the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce.
Rob Salvino, a research economist at Coastal Carolina University, has said that new manufacturing jobs would be a significant and welcomed addition to Myrtle Beach and Horry County, with there being a small manufacturing sector in the area.
Most of the new jobs would come from another company being called Project Blue.
Lofton said prior to Wednesday that Project Blue -- which would bring 1,020 jobs to Horry County -- would like to begin construction on a building around Sept.1. He said he feels confident that the county will get the company.
Officials still won’t reveal, until the deal is finalized, the company’s name and the nature of Project Blue’s business because of confidentiality agreements with the company, but Lofton has said it would be located in the Carolina Forest area, making a $30 million a year payroll and a $75 million annual economic impact on the area.
The EDC already announced 260 jobs since December from Frontier Communications and AvCraft, an aviation maintenance and repair company in Myrtle Beach, bringing the group about half-way toward its goal of luring 500 jobs to Horry County by the fall. Lofton, who started in April 2011 as the EDC’s president and chief executive officer, pledged to bring that number of jobs to the area during his first 18 months on the job.
Contact JANELLE FROST at 443-2404.
