Virginia outdoor deck manufacturer announces plans for $400 million, 500-worker production facility at Port of Little Rock

November 1-7, 2021

By The Daily Record staff

The City of Little Rock scored another economic development win on Tuesday (Oct. 26) as Winchester, Va.-based Trex Company announced plans to develop a new multi-faceted $400 million production site in city’s largest industrial park. 

During a news conference at the Port of Little Rock, Trex officials said the new production complex should increase the company’s ability to meet the anticipated strong demand for its industry-leading decking and railing products. Based on the company’s national search, Little Rock emerged as the best fit for Trex’s immediate and future needs with a location closer to essential raw materials, a strong pool of qualified and skilled labor, and proximity to key growth regions for wood conversion.

Company officials said the new Arkansas facility is also adjacent to major transportation hubs that will offer optimized freight costs for customers in the middle of the country who are presently served by existing facilities in Virginia and Nevada. Adding capacity also positions the company to better serve its distribution and retail partners domestically and abroad.

“This new site represents a strategic investment not only in our company’s future but in the future success of our valued channel partners,” said Trex Company President and CEO Bryan Fairbanks. “With the outdoor living category continuing to show strong momentum and our success to-date in converting share from the wood decking market, the time is right to further expand our capacity so that we can meet future customer demand efficiently and effectively.”

Formed in 1996 through the buyout of a division of Mobil Corporation, the publicly traded composite wood manufacturer reported sales of more than $881 million in fiscal 2020. The company said it expects to invest an estimated $400 million over the next five years in the development of the new Arkansas site, funded primarily through ongoing cash generation. The Trex campus will sit on nearly 300 acres of land at the Arkansas River industrial park and will eventually include buildings dedicated to decking and railing production, plastic film recycling and processing, reclaimed wood storage, warehousing and administrative offices. 

Construction on the project is slated to begin in early 2022. The development approach will be modular and calibrated to demand trends with the first production output anticipated in 2024. The campus will substantially expand output and will have the potential to be the company’s largest manufacturing facility. Over time, Trex said will bring more than 500 new jobs to the Little Rock area and will be interviewing candidates for key positions starting this fall and will broaden its recruiting efforts for both salaried and hourly positions in spring 2022.

“This is an exciting day for the city of Little Rock and all of Central Arkansas,” said Gov. Asa Hutchinson. “Trex is highly regarded as the world’s premier composite decking company, and it is with great pleasure that we welcome them to Arkansas. The company was looking at several locations, but Arkansas stood out thanks to its dedicated workforce, competitive business environment, location and superb quality of life. The jobs created by Trex will significantly enhance our economic climate, and I look forward to watching Trex grow and succeed in the coming years.”

“I’m excited to welcome Trex, the world’s leading manufacturer of composite decking and railing, to Little Rock,” said Mayor Frank Scott Jr. “This regional manufacturing and distribution center will benefit greatly from our amazing assets – those being river, road, rail and air all intersecting in one place. And our residents will benefit from the addition of hundreds of high-wage jobs added to the economy.”

Named to Forbes’ 2021 List of America’s Best Mid-Size Companies and one of the nation’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies by Fortune magazine, Trex opened its first production lines in Virginia in 1993 with 36 employees. The company now has more than 1,700 employees worldwide and has a dominant share of the composite decking market, and sales in more than 6,700 retail outlets across 40 countries.

In the company’s second quarter earnings report, Fairbanks said demand for Trex Residential products continues to benefit from positive secular trends, including growth in the outdoor living category, renewed focus on the home, the shift in populations from urban to suburban and smaller metropolitan areas, and consumers’ increasing preference for sustainable products. 

“With the strength of outdoor living trends continuing, we expect our brand leadership and new capacity to allow us to drive growth across our product portfolio, including a significant opportunity for conversion from wood to Trex sustainable composite decking and railing,” said Fairbanks. “In addition, we expect Trex Commercial to continue to provide innovative solutions in the commercial railing space and maintain focus on operational improvements,

According to company officials, environmental stewardship is embedded in Trex’s DNA. The entire portfolio of Trex decking is manufactured from 95% recycled materials, including a mix of reclaimed wood scrap and discarded plastic film. As one of the largest recyclers of polyethylene in North America, Trex works with several commercial partnerships and community programs across the country to source plastic waste through its NexTrex recycling program.

Among its largest sources are grocery stores and other retailers who partner with Trex to responsibly dispose of plastic shopping bags and polyethylene film used to wrap products and pallets. The company also sponsors an annual Trex Plastic Film Recycling Challenge that engages students in grades K-12 in collecting and recycling plastic film while teaching them how plastic waste can find a second life in the form of high-performance Trex® composite decking.

“The Chamber is thrilled to welcome Trex to our region’s growing economy,” said Little Rock Regional Chamber Chairman John Burgess. “Having worked closely with the project team, it is clear why this company has been nationally recognized as one of America’s Best Mid-Size Companies, and we look forward to supporting them moving forward as they establish and grow within Little Rock.”

The Little Rock production facility is part of the company’s ongoing capacity expansion. In June of 2019, the company announced plans to invest $200 million in the infrastructure, people and processes to increase capacity in its Nevada and Virginia manufacturing facilities. In January, that expansion was   that completed one month ahead of schedule and has enabled us to accommodate the continued strong broad-based demand for Trex Residential outdoor living products, officials said.

Fairbanks said further build-out of new decking lines in Virginia will continue, and those new lines are scheduled to be available for production by the end of this year. He also stated that the company’s expansion initiatives will serve the core residential market and will enable the Virginia wood products manufacturer to actively pursue future growth opportunities, including the expansion of international sales and the entrance of Trex Residential products into the home builder market.

“This expansion provides Trex with important competitive advantages in today’s dynamic outdoor living market,” emphasized Fairbanks. “It will afford us the ability to flex with demand by adding capacity as needed. Having multiple manufacturing sites also helps mitigate risk while providing bandwidth to pursue new opportunities that will enable us to further leverage our unsurpassed brand recognition and expand our presence both domestically and internationally.”  

PHOTO CAPTION:

Winchester, Va.-based Trex Company on Oct. 26 announced plans to develop a new $400 millioni multi-faceted production site in Little Rock that will eventually hire 500 local workers.