Foamex plant will close down
WARN letter from Foamex/FXI to NC Commerce, Cornelius mayor
April 27. By Dave Yocchum. The old Foamex plant, now known as FXI, will close, resulting in the loss of 59 jobs, the NC Dept. of Commerce says. The company has been a fixture in Cornelius for decades.
Long-time Cornelius resident Ed Bost said the company was once located in an old mill building on Catawba Avenue down that has since been torn down. Foamex/FXI makes polyurethane foam products most often used in mattresses.
Layoffs begin about May 22. The WARN notice said the layoffs will be permanent.
Background
Their massive plant at the corner of Old Statesville Road and Bailey Road, sits on about 48 acres, according to Mecklenburg County tax records. It’s new assessment is $13.55 million.
The notice of closure was filed with the NC Dept. of Commerce under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining
Notification Act, better known as WARN. It requires some larger employers to provide advance notice of a worksite closing or mass layoff.
The FXI building burned last year, but no injuries were reported.
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Looking forward to the exciting changes that are surly to come!
Great place for a water park
It was Reeves Brothers for so many years, and I have memory of when the 115 plant was small…and the fire that put our Daddy who was a volunteer fireman in the hospital because the fumes burned his lungs this was 1964. At one point between the plant in downtown Cornelius and the one on 115 they were the largest employee in Cornelius. An era ends…jo
The upper plant that sat where the Food Lion is now was an automotive plant. It was closed and moved to Auburn, Indiana in 1987. I worked at that plant and my husband worked at the lower plant for 31 years. It was still Reeve’s Brothers at that time. Sad to see another place of employment closing.
This is the last major freight customer for Norfolk Southern on this line, other than the scrap steel mill near Harris Boulevard. There are two-three other bulk lumber facilities that occasionally use NS’s services on this line, but that’s inconsistent. The big question-can this factory be repurposed for another rail customer, or will Norfolk Southern change their minds as far as having CATS use the line for commuter rail…if so, it’s not quite a slam-dunk.
Irony: NS upgraded this line (new railroad ties, new crossing hardware, etc) around 2014. Then they took the Cornelius-Mooresville segment out of service a few years ago.