MOUNTAIN PINE -- Green shoots of industry are straining from the ground left fallow by Weyerhaeuser's departure more than a decade ago.
The burgeoning vitality was evident earlier this week on the site now known as the Pines Industrial Park, 389 acres inescapably linked to the fortunes of Mountain Pine. Two local sons are working to improve the circumstances of both by providing the mainstay their hometown has been casting about for since Weyerhaeuser shuttered its Mountain Pine operation in 2006.
The construction underway on the footprint formerly occupied by a plywood plant signals the start of Morgan Wiles and Shaun Keefe's plan to bring a vertically integrated window company to Mountain Pine within two years. The 50,000-square-foot space will house Morfe Manufacturing, the window supplier for retailer WinChoice USA.
Both are part of Morfe Properties, a company Wiles and Keefe started in 2012.
They said it had $24 million in revenues last year that are projected to grow to $35 million in 2018. They collaborated with Keefe's brother-in-law, Prateek Gera, a commercial real estate developer from Jonesboro, to purchase the mill site from Weyerhaeuser last year for $550,000.
While Weyerhaeuser's departure was driven by retrenchment, Morfe's arrival is borne by expansion. Its 15,000-square-foot headquarters on Mill Creek Road does not have the capacity to keep up with WinChoice's demand, requiring a big part of production to be outsourced to an Ohio supplier.
With the new location, the company hopes to produce 100 percent of its retail and wholesale product in Mountain Pine by April.
"There's no more room at (Millcreek)," Wiles said. "That's the reason we started looking for new locations. We could shut that down over a weekend, bring in all our new equipment that's just sitting on the ground over there and have this operational by the following Monday or Tuesday."
Relocating WinChoice to Pines Park is the expansion's next phase, which envisions a four-story office building for the company's administrative and sales departments. The company's current payroll boasts more than 100 employees.
"We'll do all of our marketing, financing and customer service from here hopefully within 24 months," Wiles said.
The glass plant the company wants to start would complete the vertical integration, bringing the entire spectrum from production to installation under Morfe's banner. Wiles said the company currently sources its glass from the Dallas area.
Forty acres of Pines Park are reserved for the window enterprise, but Wiles and Keefe plan to parcel out much of the site to other industries that can bring jobs to their hometown. More than 100 acres have been earmarked for a lumber operation Wiles said inquired with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission about coming to Mountain Pine.
He said Pines Park is one of three sites in the running for the $100 million capital investment and over 100 jobs paying almost $17 an hour. AEDC wouldn't confirm or deny if it had received inquiries about the site.
"AEDC doesn't talk about potential projects in the media," said Brandi Hinkle, AEDC's director of communications.
Wiles said the lumber mill would give the site the scale to convince Arkansas Midland Railroad to bring the rail line that traverses the park back into operation, allowing vinyl for window frames to be delivered by rail.
Wiles and Keefe said they'll know by next month if the state has approved their application for a license to cultivate medical marijuana. They said it advanced to the ranking phase being conducted by the state's Medical Marijuana Commission.
The state Department of Finance and Administration said it received 227 applications for the five cultivation licenses the commission will award as part of the Arkansas Medical Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2016.
The cultivation center would be located at Pines Park. The Mountain Pine City Council voted unanimously in May to endorse a letter of support for bringing a center to the city.
Local on 01/21/2018