Norwalk, Conn.-based HMTX Industries LLC is leasing a 313,000-square-foot facility in Pittston, Pa., to house a manufacturing plant for luxury vinyl tile that will create 115 jobs during the next three years.
A fourth-generation, family-owned company with $800 million in annual sales, HMTX will invest $25.2 million at the site, including electrical upgrades, equipment, additional parking and employee training, according to news release from the office of Gov. Tom Wolf.
The company also will receive $425,000 in local and state grants aimed at spurring economic and workforce development.
HMTX is leasing space built in 2021 at an industrial commerce park at the confluence of five major highways and within three hours of four deepwater ports.
The global manufacturer of building materials serves a diverse cross section of the construction marketplace with several brands of products: Halstead, an LVT for the home and a leading supplier of resilient flooring that is also sold at Home Depot under the LifeProof brand; Metroflor, a rigid core LVT for residential uses; Teknoflor, a bio-based polyurethane flooring for health care and institutional uses; Aspecta, a high-end contract brand for architects and designers; and Vertex, a materials manufacturer and supplier of rigid core LVT.
Halstead and Vertex were named 2020 supply chain partners of the year by Home Depot, which also has space at the commerce park.
In November 2019, HMTX CEO Harlan Stone put a spotlight on the lack of LVT production in the United States and everywhere else outside of China as the organizer of an industry coalition. Stone and others advocated for lifting tariffs on LVT from China to spare U.S. consumers higher costs and to save U.S. jobs. The coalition argued that LVT has been a "driving force" behind U.S. flooring industry growth for the last decade. Stone died in September.