Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 17, 1993 TAG: 9308170046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
James "Doc" Reagan, Pulaski manager for the Mount Airy, N.C., corporation, said creating the jobs will be possible if Pulaski agrees to let Renfro expand into the former L.A. Joe department store building in the Pulaski Mall.
"If we find the people, I think it'll happen in the next three or four months," he said.
Renfro, which makes women's and girls' fashion socks for major retail outlets, occupied the former Virginia Maid hosiery plant on Jefferson Street in Pulaski about seven years ago. In 1991, it opened a second plant on Newbern Road.
Even without the expansion, Renfro is expecting an increase in employment. Fifty new knitting machines are scheduled to arrive at Renfro's Jefferson Street plant in October, Reagan said. That will add 12 jobs there. And there are other job openings at both plants.
Pulaski Town Council and the Pulaski Planning Commission will hold a joint meeting at 7 p.m. Monday to discuss whether to give Renfro a conditional-use permit to move into the L.A. Joe store.
Two years ago, Town Council gave a conditional-use permit to another company to do light industrial work at the same site, but that company went elsewhere.
Reagan said there would be two or three large trucks a day coming and going at the new site, along with some smaller ones. From East Main Street (Virginia 99), he said, "it would just look like they were doing a real good business."
Three compressors, like those at the Newbern Road plant, would be placed outside the building. He said there should be no more noise coming from the seaming operation than from a grocery store or other stores in the mall.
As in the other plants, this one would operate with two 10-hour shifts a day. There probably would be someone in the building 24 hours a day, he said.
He said the L.A. Joe building is almost the only one available in the area that would accommodate Renfro's expansion plans.
Reagan said that moving Renfro's seaming operations into that store will free space to add the new jobs at the existing plants.
"Conservatively, I'm going to say we'll add another 150 jobs here," he told Town Council's Finance Committee on Monday morning.
Under the proposal, Renfro would have an option to use the L.A. Joe building for two years. "I don't think it would be permanent," Reagan said. "When we leave, it would look just like it is."
The move is a temporary measure to meet production needs and give the company time to decide how and where to handle the seaming work in a permanent location.
Reagan said the back-to-school and Christmas seasons are busiest for Renfro, which now employs 1,130. "We just finished back-to-school. We've got about a month till we have to start gearing up for Christmas," he said.
Renfro would leave the store's existing drop ceiling and heating facilities in place. It would provide lights directly over the seamers and remove them when it left the building.
Reagan said the corporation has experienced 15 percent annual growth in recent years, mainly because of the Pulaski operations.
"This is where all of our growth has come in the last five or six years, really," he said. "We've had real good success here. Everybody's worked with us."
The employees who would be added at the two plants would work in dyeing, shaping, inspecting, boxing, knitting and seaming. The pay scale would range from $5.21 to $8.50 an hour.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.