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Apr 29, 2008 (The News & Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Stock Building Supply is opening a manufacturing plant in Sanford with 40 workers as it reorganizes operations in response to the housing slump.

Stock, one of the nation's largest building material suppliers, is consolidating roof truss manufacturing operations from two smaller, less efficient plants that were closed in Kernersville and Monroe. Roof trusses are triangular frames that support roofs.

The Sanford plant, which also will manufacture and distribute wall panels and lumber for new homes, will be open by early summer. Stock is renovating a vacant former mobile home manufacturing facility purchased in February for $2.35 million.

About 20 people lost jobs in the Kernersville and Monroe plant closings, and an unspecified number of those employees will be transferred to the Sanford plant, Stock spokeswoman Denise Water said. She declined to specify wages.

Lee County's unemployment rate in March was 5.6 percent, compared with a 5.2 percent statewide rate.

Company officials said they wanted the manufacturing to be nearer the Triangle, which has not seen as steep declines in home construction as some other areas.

"The Lee County plant provides a centralized location and a more efficient plant, which will improve our ability to service and distribute to our customers," Stock District Manager Ken Greene said in a statement.

Stock, which has headquarters in Raleigh, operates another roof truss manufacturing facility in Middlesex.

The 125,000 square foot Sanford facility offers convenient access to Triad and Fayetteville housing markets as well as the Triangle, said Lee Economic Development director Bob Heuts.

"They know the Raleigh, Greensboro and Fayetteville markets will pick back up, and they have a nice location here within 50 minutes of any of those," Heuts said.

Stock, which is a subsidiary of Reading, England-based Wolseley, has been hard hit as home sales and construction declined across the United States.

In fiscal year 2007, ending in July, revenue was down 13.4 percent to $4.6 billion. In the first half of 2008, revenue was down 25.7 percent, Waters said.

About 3,500 Stock workers have been laid off, including an unspecified number in the Triangle since mid-2006, and a dozen retail stores have closed. Stock now has 302 locations in 34 states.

About 75 percent of Stock's revenue comes from residential sales, but the company has diversified in the past year by purchasing four suppliers of windows and doors for commercial buildings.

"We're working hard to diversify the business and to be less dependent on the new residential market," Waters said.

dudley.price@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4525

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Dudley Price

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