A Canadian company that manufactures ready-to-assemble furniture is reportedly planning to move all of its operations from Vancouver, British Columbia, to its facility just over the Alamance County line in Whitsett.
Prepac Manufacturing, a Vancouver-based maker of ready-to-assemble shelving and furniture, opened its facility at the Rock Creek industrial park at 3031 Hendren Road in Whitsett several years ago.
The Rock Creek industrial park along I-85/40 between Burlington and Greensboro is also home to Amazon, American Express, Carolina Biological Supply, and Federal Express.
Prepac opened its facility in the industrial park in 2021, after receiving up to $2.1 million in state incentives through a Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) with a 12-year term that was announced in August 2020 by then-Gov. Roy Cooper. Guilford County’s commissioners also agreed at the time to award $597,286 in grants to lure Prepac to Whitsett.
In exchange for the state incentives, Prepac promised to invest $27.1 million in a 260,000-square-foot facility and hire at least 201 people.
A September 2024 report from the state Department of Commerce, which administers the JDIG program, estimated that Prepac could eventually create a total of 445 “indirect and induced” jobs and generate $5.9 million in annual state revenue through its facility in Whitsett.
However, the state’s most recent employment data for the Prepac facility in Whitsett showed that 129 new jobs had been created and certified as of 2022, according to the commerce department’s report.
Meanwhile, Unifor, which describes itself as Canada’s largest private-sector union, attributed Prepac’s reported decision to move all of its production to Whitsett to trade tariffs that have been announced by President Donald Trump.
The union also said in a recent news release that all production at Prepac’s facility in British Columbia would be halted on March 13, and all of the company’s employees would be laid off in May.
Prepac officials have not confirmed those claims. A representative for Prepac North Carolina, at the Whitsett facility, had not responded to an inquiry from The Alamance News by press time Wednesday.
Prepac was founded in 1979 in Vancouver, British Columbia, as a manufacturer of particle board used in the building industry and later expanded its products to include furniture, now sold online through Amazon, Home Depot, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Target, Walmart, and Wayfair, according to the company.
