September 26, 2013
The new warehouse at Owens Corning is under construction and is still scheduled to be completed by early 2014.
The announcement was made this spring of the multimillion dollar facility to be added to the Aiken plant on Wagener Road.
According to a press release, ElmTree Funds recently closed on the acquisition of the new distribution center, which is said to be an $8.5 million facility. Owens Corning, a global producer of building materials, glass-fiber reinforcements and engineered materials for composite systems, will lease the facility from the private equity investment firm for 15 years, the release reads.
Jason Ridgway, an ElmTree senior analyst of acquisitions, said commercial sale leasebacks are a fairly common financing practice for many companies due to several benefits including tax advantages.
The new structure will be approximately 175,000-square-feet and connected to the existing Aiken facility on land adjacent to the property. This will replace an off-site warehouse that’s currently 30 minutes from the Aiken plant.
The reason behind the new warehouse is to “eliminate cost, complexity and waste generated by the movement of product” from the Aiken plant to the current warehouse, according to the release.
Owens Corning was founded in the late 1930s and established its Aiken plant in 1979. The plant has experienced three expansions, and in 2010, Owens Corning added a nonwoven glass fiber mat production line, which generated 35 jobs with a $36 million investment.