Carey, N.C.-based Cornerstone Building Brands Inc. is closing an extrusion plant that employs 58 people in Fair Bluff, N.C., and moving some of its production to Nebraska.
Formed in late 2018 by the merger of Ply Gem Parent LLC and NCI Building Systems, Cornerstone is the largest North American manufacturer of exterior building products.
The Fair Bluff plant makes roof, fence and rail products.
"While we increase efficiencies across the company as part of our overall business transformation, we have eliminated the roofing category from the Ply Gem portfolio. Our Fair Bluff, N.C., facility was the sole manufacturing location for that product, along with a limited volume of fence and railing materials," Cornerstone wrote in a statement to Plastics News.
"Our production facility in York, Neb., is operationally, geographically and strategically well-positioned to efficiently produce the volume necessary to both meet our customers' needs, and respond to growth in the fence and railing market," the statement added.
The Fair Bluff facility will be shuttered Aug. 2, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed with the North Carolina Department of Commerce.
Local officials are scrambling to line up new jobs for residents of the town still devastated by flooding from Hurricane Florence last year and Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
Fair Bluff had a population of 951 in 2010. But after flood waters destroyed the downtown and many homes, only a few hundred people still live there.
The Columbus County Economic Development Commission will discuss the issue June 18, and county officials also are preparing to help Cornerstone employees find other work.
Just six years ago, Ply Gem had announced an expansion plan that called for hiring 145 more employees and investing $15.5 million in Fair Bluff through 2016, but the company's strategy changed last year, after the merger with NCI Building Systems.
In May, Cornerstone Chairman and CEO James Metcalf said cost-saving initiatives and merger synergies were underway, to "find new ways to take advantage of scale and purchasing power, while providing a broader product offering to our customers."
In its first quarter as a combined company, Cornerstone reported sales of $1.06 billion with $425 million of sales for commercial products such as insulated metal panels, $234.5 million in siding sales and $412.6 million in window sales.