Trex chooses Mississippi site over Cape Girardeau

The greater Cape Girardeau area narrowly lost out on its bid to become the home of a new manufacturing plant for the nation's largest manufacturer of synthetic decking that would have created hundreds of new jobs.

Winchester, Va.-based Trex Co. Inc. has chosen Metro Industrial Park in Olive Branch, Miss., as the site for a $160 million to $240 million manufacturing facility. But Cape Girardeau was the other finalist for the company.

"We were No. 2, but it's never good to be the bride's maid," said Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association.

McCallum Sweeney Consulting, working on behalf of Trex, was looking for a 100-acre site served by rail for a two-phase manufacturing project that would include a $40 million to $80 million investment and create between 50 and 225 jobs in the first phase. The second phase would involve a $120 million to $160 million investment and create 275 to 450 jobs.

In Cape Girardeau, Robinson said, they were looking at the Nash Road area as a site for the manufacturing plant.

Robinson said Trex liked the logistics that Olive Branch, which is near Memphis, Tenn., brought, including major highways that went in all four directions. That will make shipping their finished goods and raw material easier, Robinson said.

The Olive Branch site will also be a little bit cheaper to develop, Robinson said. While the property prices were both comparable, Robinson said extra work was needed for the Southeast Missouri site to raise the elevation of the ground level.

"As far as taxes and other incentives, we were very even," Robinson said. "Of course we're disappointed. This was going to be a very, very large deal for us."

Formed in a buyout of Mobil's Composite Products Division in 1996, Trex makes alternative decking material made of a wood-plastic composite that combines waste wood fibers and reclaimed polyethylene.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137