Textile manufacturing is on the upswing down South as an industry once left for dead undergoes resurgence.
Yarn producer Unifi Inc. on Wednesday broke ground on a planned 85,000-square-foot expansion of its Repreve Recycling Center in Yadkinville, North Carolina, that will increase the 4-year-old facility’s capacity to make the company’s recycled fiber brand, Repreve, and other premier value-added products (PVA) by up to 60 million pounds.
The $10 million investment will also create room to hire between 18 and 20 more employees when construction is completed in the spring of 2016.
“We are very encouraged by the continued growth of Repreve and the opportunities it brings for Unifi and our customers,” Roger Berrier, Unifi’s president and COO, said in a statement.
In keeping with Unifi’s corporate commitment to sustainability, the additional space will include many of the same features as the original building, like skylights, energy-efficient lighting, low-flow water fixtures and building materials made from recycled content. Not to mention, a newly installed solar farm that sits on six acres of land at Unifi’s G. Allen Mebane Industrial Complex at Yadkinville could provide about 10 percent of the energy at the facility.