Furniture plant aims to help build up Dandridge

DANDRIDGE- A ribbon-cutting Friday for a $6 million to $8 million furniture manufacturing plant in Dandridge drew a crowd of a few hundred people, including about 150 new workers.

The raw, overcast morning failed to dampen the sunny mood as state and local officials and members of the business community in Jefferson County marked the opening of the 95,000-square-foot BJS North America East facility on Industrial Park Road. The plant will produce tables, headboards, chests, daybeds and other furniture items.

"A lot of people can build beautiful buildings," Dale Dennis, BJS general manager, told those waiting to tour the facility, which has been on a limited production schedule for two months. "But when we made the commitment (to build the plant), we also committed ourselves to bring jobs to the county, to turn around the trend of companies leaving the county and present ourselves in a way that other companies would like to come to Jefferson County."

Bringing the plant to Dandridge was a local as well as an international project. BJS North America East is owned half by Swedish-based BJS Group AB and half by Dandridge-based Klote International Corporation, which already has a furniture-making operation on property next to the BJS plant.

Founded in 1977 by Carl E. Klote, developer of furniture-making techniques in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s, Klote International makes Scandinavian-inspired upholstered furniture. The principal partners in BJS North America East, P<0x00E4>r Lid<0x00E5>ker and Kaj Johnansson of BJS Group and Carl-G<0x00F6>sta Torstensson of Klote International, were on hand for the ribbon-cutting.

So was Maria Johansson, president of purchasing for IKEA, a Swedish-based global furniture company that is the primary customer for Klote International and the new BJS plant. IKEA has been expanding its presence in North America with 37 stores in the U.S. and 11 in Canada. Lid<0x00E5>ker said IKEA approached the parties involved about building a new facility to help supply inventory.

Don Cason, president of the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber plus the Jefferson County Industrial Development Board, Dandridge and Jefferson County governments, East Tennessee Development District and other groups worked to help bring the new plant to Dandridge.

Jefferson County Mayor Alan Palmieri said the plant comes at a critical time, with the county facing 13 percent unemployment.

"This will mean 150 or more jobs, every one of them precious," he said.

Dennis said the plant offers starting wages of $8 to $10 an hour with benefits such as health care and paid vacations. Deborah Petty, packaging system supervisor at the BJS plant, said that for her, the plant is a new beginning after a year and a half of searching for work after she was laid off from her previous job.

"It's not just the thrill of a new job," she said. ""What we are building here is not just our future, but the future of our community."