NEWS BRIEFS

Retailers

Scottyb will close stores in Pembroke Pines, Thmarac, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Port St. Lucie, Fl., and two in Mobile, Al. (Airport Blvd. and Dauphin St.), by the end of the month, and has acquired Lehigh B uilding Supply/Do - it Center, Lehigh Acres (Fort Myers), Fl.

Choo-Choo Build-it Mart has opened 35,000-sq. ft. store #8 in Rincon, Ga.

Day & Day Building Supply, Spur, Tx., has closed ...

Alamo Lumber Co., San Antonio, Tx., has acquired Scon Horne Center, Raymondville, Tx., as its l4th location

Ply Mart, Norcross, Ga., has opened its 8th lumber branch and 6th specialty division in Windet Ga.; the 34-acre complex includes a 70,000-sq. ft. retail facility, 60,000-sq. ft. door and window plant, 27,000-sq. ft. warehouse, 12,000-sq. ft. specialty operation and 5.5-acre paved yard with large storage shed ...

84 Lumber opened new yards on five acres in Jackson, Tn. (Steve Patterson, mgr.) and in Culpeper, Va. @ric Ladner, mgr.; Greg Vieau, co-mgr.), and closed its West Orlando, Fl., yard

Wickes Lumber closed its Allen, Ky., yard ...

H&M Lumber Co., West Helena, Ar., after 35 years has moved into a 40,00Gsq. ft. former Wal-Man site...

BMC West has acquired 5.2 acres. incuding l0,00Gsq. ft. warehouse and 1,000-sq. ft. offices in

San Antonio, Tx., and 3.9 acres with 25,00O sq. ft. of warehouse space and 3,500-sq. ft. offices in Round Rock, Tx., from RBP Inc., Dallas, Ti.

Home Depot opened a new store last month in Columbus, Ga.; projects a late summer completion of its store under construction in Jackson, Ms.; has begun constnrction on an 80,00Gsq. ft. store to anchor a 4O-acre Parkway Plaz,a Shopping Center near Norman, Ok., due in October; will build a larger replacernent store in central Tampa, Fl.; is negotiating to purchase I I acres in Edmond, Ok., for a 121,972-sq. ft. store with construction to begin late this month, and pulled out of a deal to develop an Expo store in Houston, Tx., after months of negotiations with three different landowners ...

Lowe's Cos., hoping to have 600 stores by the year 2000, opened a 150,00Gsq. ft supentore in Lubbock, Tx. (Larry Hodges, store mgr.), a 115,000-sq. ft. replacement store with 47,00Gsq. ft. garden center in Fredericksburg, Va. (Richard Gortleq mgr.), and a 140,000-sq. ft. unit in Fort Walton Beach, Fl.; and will complete constuction of a 134,00Gsq. ft. store to replace trro in Augusta" Ga., in August; a 130,497-sq. ft. store with 30,000-sq. ft. garden center in Temple, Tx., in September, and a 115,00Gsq. ft. replacement stor€ with 30,00Gsq. ft. garden center in Corbin, Ky., early next year ...

Wholesalers & Manufacturers

Anniversaries ... Breco Wood Products, Sherman, Tx.,5th

Boise Cascade has agreed to purchase Louisiana-Pacific's tuto Rounds & Poner wholesale building material disnibution facilities, including 17 acres of land and 86,00Gsq. ft. of covered storagein Dallas, Tx., and eight acres with 120,00Gsq. ft of warehouse space in Tblsa Ok. ... Boise Cascade has discontinued negotiations for a ioint venturc with Brazilian oro- joint with producer Compartia Suztno de Papel e Celulose acquiring, expanding and operating Boise C-ascade's pu$papermill bJackson, Al.

Mayfield Building Supply, Arlington, Tx., has purchased 10 acres in Rochrall, Tl., for its 3rd yard, where it wil produce interiorlexterior doors, windows and insul*ion; Stcve Buckner, mgr. ...

Buie Forcst Pro&tcts has relocated offices from San Antmio to Boerne, Tx. ...

Tenneco Packaging-Wood P rcducts, Ttrscaloosa, Al., is the new name for TMA Forcst Prducts

RaYonier has ssmplsted a $13 million modernization and expansion of its Swainsboro, Ga., mill, increasing capacity from 9O million to 130 million bd. ft. of southern pine to malch production of is Baxley, Ga., mill; Nick Smith, operations mgr.

Wrenn H andling, Charlotte, N.C., has added a parts distribution warehouse and service dispatch office in Commerce, Ga., serving northeast Georgia ...

Orgill,Inc., Memphis, Tn., has agreed to purchase fellow Distribution America member Witte Hardware Corp., St. Louis, Mo.; Neil Marglous remains pres. of Witte...

American Inntern Co., Newport, Ar., decorative lighting manufacturer, has been acquired by security lighting maker Intelectton" Inc., Haywand, Ca.

Vistawall Architectural P roducts tras moved production from recently acquired Skywa[ Transluccttt Systems' Chattanoog!, Tn., facility to its 500,000-sq. ft. Vistawall and Naturalite plant in Terrell, Tx. ...

Clay-Ingels Co., Lexington, Ky., has acquired the assets of

Cadiz Door Co., Cadiz, Ky.;

Leroy Merrick, gen. mgr.; Roger Merrick, office mgr.

Harloc, Inc., Taylorsville, Ky., will build a 45,000-sq. ft. finishing and plating facility in Guadalajara, Mexico, to supply finished parts for assembly at its main Taylorsville plant by the end of the year

Housing starts in April (latest figs.) climbed 5.9Vo to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.519 million, the highest level in two years building permits rose 3.3Vo starts in the South increased 4.8Vo to a 657,000 annualrate, with permitsnp 8.4Vo.

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Treater Sells Alabama Mill

Guice Slawson, owner of Southeast Wood Treating, has sold his interest in Southeast Wood TreatingJasper Sawmill, Jasper, Al., to partners Glenn Bracewell and Freddy Thompson.

With a sawmill and two chip mills, Jasper Lumber Co. previously shipped all product to Southeast Wood Treating. The company will now offer its lumber on the open market.

Southeast Wood Treating relocated corporate offices from Jasper to Montgomery, Al.

Straw Panel Plant Closes

Stramit USA, Perryton, Tx., has closed, ceasing production of its 2| / 4" -thick compressed-straw, paperfaced panels, used as interior partition walls.

The plant began operating in the spring of 1995 (see Sept., p. l3), but was hindered by an expensive twoyear start-up and having two years' worth of harvested wheat straw that proved unusable. -

The company is considering selling the equipment and plant.

Chemical Fire Guts Lowe's

A swimming pool chemical that reportedly mixed with a still-unknown substance caused a spontaneous twoalarm fire that destroyed the 85,000sq. ft. Lowe's store in Albany, Ga., and more than $6 million in merchandise.

Officials suspect crystal chlorine, known as HTH, ignited the blaze about 10:20 a.m. April 16. "A customer dropped a bucket of pool chemicals, and it just exploded," noted an employee who was restocking shelves in the pool department when the fire broke out.

It quickly spread to nearby pesticides and plastic plumbing fixtures before sweeping through the rest of the three-year-old building.

It took firefighters about three hours to bring the blaze under control, but they remained through the next day to quell all the flames.

Two employees, two firefighters and one customer were treated for smoke inhalation.

Within a week, the company had already signed a lease to temporarily relocate to a vacant Kmart site nearby until a new store could be built.