Rockingham, Eden officials sad, but hopeful

Eden Mayor John Grogan said Wednesday the closing of two Hanesbrands Inc. plants represented a sad day for the area, but he felt confident the community would rebound.

“Our people have faced adversity before and we’ve made some comebacks,” Grogan said. “We’ll never be the same community we were when we had the (Fieldcrest) corporate headquarters here, but we’ve been down this road, and we’ll be back.”

Grogan said he first heard about the closings after being called to City Hall on Wednesday morning. City Manager Brad Corcoran told Grogan he heard about the closings on the morning news.

Rockingham County Manager Tom Robinson said he first heard the bad news the same way.

“Local officials are supposed to get a certain notification before announcements are made, but it didn’t happen this time,” Robinson said. “Company officials told us they were looking to make an announcement around lunchtime today to officials, but there was a leak somewhere.”

Grogan said the company told employees about the closings Tuesday and speculated one of them could have spoken to a media source.

While expressing empathy for the 720 people losing jobs over the next year, Grogan also expressed concern for the impact on the city from the loss of two water and sewer customers.

“Eden Yarns is one of our biggest water and sewer users,” he said “That loss will be something the city manager and council will have to address.”

Grogan said the Hanesbrands plants use up to 2.8 million gallons of water and sewer per day, or 1 billion gallons per year. The consumption amounts to more than 34 percent of the city’s total water and sewer use.

“That’s millions of dollars a year in water and sewer revenue for us,” he said.

Grogan said Eden entered into a 10-year contract with the company when the yarn plant relocated to the area due to having to increase the city’s supply capabilities. The contract will not expire until June 2011 and obligates the company to the 2.8 million gallons per day quota.

“If the contract’s still in place, we feel comfortable they’ll still pay us the $3 million a year that represents,” Grogan said.

  Since the plants are outside Eden’s city limits, the municipality receives no tax revenues from the properties. Robinson said revenue losses to the county would depend on how much equipment and machinery was moved out of the buildings.

“The buildings will still be taxed,” he said. “So we won’t lose that revenue. But it’s still a major loss to the area.”

Although the quickness of the closings caught him off guard, Robinson said additional losses in textile jobs for the county was not a great surprise.

Manufacturing jobs represent 13 percent of overall employment in North Carolina, according to Robinson. The county’s manufacturing rate stands at 26 percent.

“We’re double the state average and much higher than the national average,” said Robinson. “So I would say that we have probably not bottomed out on our manufacturing employment, especially in the area of textiles.

Robinson said county economic developers were hoping Hanesbrands would be able to adapt and survive.

“But we knew in the back of our minds all along that they were vulnerable,” he said.

Since textile losses have been a fact of life for the county for several years, Robinson said he was hopeful Hanesbrands’ vacated buildings would provide space for new companies with more stability than textiles.

“We came out very well after the Unifi closings in the western part of the county,” he said. “But we had some good buildings there and I’m not really sure about the status of the buildings Hanesbrands occupies now. Hopefully, we can make something out of these losses like we did out of the earlier layoffs on the western side.”

A line of cars left the Hanesbrand plant on Gant Road after the 6:30 p.m. shift change.

Homer Wood, owner of Railroad Café in the Draper section of Eden, said the traffic flow on East Meadow Road from 6 to 7 a.m. and 6 to 7 p.m. is constant. But that will change in the coming months. 

“It really didn’t surprise me. I knew it was coming; I just didn’t know when,” said Wood. “It’s going to be a big hit for the employees and the city of Eden and the water and sewer.”

Wood has seen a lot of change during his 51 years at the cafe, remembering when Fieldcrest-Cannon was the major employer.

“We just don’t know what’s going to happen,” a worker said on her way out of work Wednesday evening. She wouldn’t give her name, fearing she could lose her job before the plant closes.

Said Wood, “It really didn’t surprise me. I knew it was coming; I just didn’t know when. It’s going to be a big hit for the employees and the city of Eden and the water and sewer.”

News editor Steve Lawson can be reached at or 548-6047.