COOK- Manufactured wood products company LP Solutions announced plans for continued expansion at an investors meeting Monday, but once again the company’s Cook facility wasn’t in their immediate plans.
Instead, to more quickly meet rising demand for its increasingly popular SmartSide siding, company CEO Brad Southern said LP Solutions will install a second production line at its Houlton, Maine plant. Southern said the plant is positioned well to take advantage of the extensive presence of aspen trees in the region and can more readily facilitate distribution to East Coast markets for remodeling and repair of houses, along with outbuildings, which now comprise around half of SmartSide sales.
A second new facility planned for eastern Washington won’t be a siding production facility. Rather, it will produce a new product, ExpertFinish, by taking primed SmartSide and painting one of 16 colors designed for home markets.
Since 2016, when Southern became the company’s chief operating officer, manufacturing plant conversions have been a critical component of a long-term strategy to shift the company’s product mix more toward siding and specialty products and away from reliance on oriented strand board. Adding another production line to its recently converted Houlton facility is a quicker and more cost-effective fit with that strategy.
And with new home starts falling, it appears the strategy is paying off.
“Comparing only the third quarter (2022 to 2021), single family starts were down 18 percent compared to last year,” Southern told investors. “The siding sales grew by 27 percent, with SmartSide and ExpertFinish both setting new records for volume and price in the quarter.”
The long-shuttered plant south of Cook has become less of a retooling prospect over time, but last February Southern said the site was being considered for a possible greenfield development, a new production facility that would feature the latest technological developments. With greater expense and longer lead time to come into production, the Houlton expansion was a better option for the company’s current needs, he said.
The Cook site’s location in the middle of northeast Minnesota’s aspen basket still makes future development of the site for siding production a possibility, but as in the past, if or when LP Solutions does something with the property remains unclear. The Timberjay reached out to LP Solutions by email on Tuesday for additional information but had not received a response by press time.