Armstrong to Reoccupy Lancaster Distribution Cente

Lancaster, PA, August 19--Armstrong World Industries' plan to expand and re-occupy a vacant distribution center at Dillerville Road and Manheim Pike won approval Wednesday from city planners, according to the Lancaster New Era. The Lancaster-based firm will enlarge the 200,000-square-foot building by 37,000 square feet and install new equipment, with work starting next month. Armstrong expects to re-occupy the building in the first quarter of next year, the company told the planners. The $2.7 million project is part of a dramatic overhaul of Armstrong's floor manufacturing and distribution operations in Lancaster County, announced in November. In that initiative, Armstrong is eliminating production of commercial tile and sheet flooring at its Lancaster floor plant, on the opposite side of Dillerville Road, and cutting 450 jobs. Armstrong already has stopped making commercial tile at the plant, doing so in December, and vacated the Dillerville Road building at that time. As it seeks to boost its efficiency, the company is spending a total of $8 million to expand the distribution center and convert the plant into just a residential-floor-making facility. Some 250 employees will remain in the combined plant and distribution center when the initiative is completed in May 2006. As part of this transition, Armstrong is selling its 600,000-square-foot distribution center near Landisville, a building that's just partially used. The storing and shipping of residential and commercial sheet flooring, now done from Landisville, will be handled by the Dillerville Road facility, requiring its expansion. Since more trucks are needed to carry the different kind of inventory (tile is on pallets while sheet is in six-foot or 12-foot rolls), Armstrong expects daily truck traffic at the Dillerville Road building to rise from 36 vehicles in the past to a post-expansion maximum of 60. In expanding the Dillerville Road facility, Armstrong told the planners, it will increase the parking from 30 to 43 spaces, add a stormwater retention basin and add landscaping. Armstrong has hired general contractor Wickersham Construction for the expansion project.