European furniture giant is biggest buyer for Lithhanian company's production.
A Lithuanian furniture maker has chosen Mocksville in Davie County for a factory that will employ 250 by the end of 2029.
SBA Group was awarded a state economic-development grant valued at nearly $1.9 million by the state Economic Investment Committee Tuesday morning in return for creating the jobs over a four year period. The company expects to invest $50.8 million for a 500,000-square-foot facility.
Mocksville and Davie County offered incentive packages worth about $800,000, and Mocksville’s primary competition was a site in Cherokee County, South Carolina, according to the state Department of Commerce.
The primary decision factors were availability of skilled labor, cost of operations, the overall business climate, and discretionary incentives, according to Commerce.
The jobs will pay an average wage of $53,470, according to the agency.
The agency said SBA Group employs more than 3,000 across five factories in Lithuania, and its furniture division exports 800 products to 50 countries. Products include wood veneer-covered plywood furniture, cabinets, sofas, armchairs and other furniture.
SBA Group also has divisions in apparel, real estate, modular construction, investment management and business services.
Its primary furniture buyer is IKEA, and it announced plans in October to open a factory in an unidentified site in the southeastern United States, according to balticnews. The only IKEA in North Carolina is in Charlotte; the company backed out of plans to build a store in Cary in 2018.
Its furniture division sold 389 Euros worth of products in 2022, according to The Lithuanian Tribune.
The company said in a press release at the time that the U.S. factory will be “highly robotized.” It stresses robotic operations in its home-country factories. SBA Home Jurgita Radzevice said in the release that the company was choosing between three sites but had already bought the equipment and it was being shipped from Germany.
The expansion project is led by Ramunas Marozas, who had run a plant in the company’s Inno line near the city of Klaipeda. The company said it will have about 30 professionals from Lithuania working on the U.S. project.
The company said separately that the factory will produce around 380 pieces of furniture per hour.
The site the company chose is at 187 Gildan Drive, in the Davie Industrial Center, Davie County Economic Development Commission President Terry Bralley told the Triad Business Journal.
The park is a project of Windsor Commercial of Greensboro. Heyward Holdings was the first occupant, announcing a distribution center there in 2021.
Bralley said a primary factor in the company's decision appeared to be availability of a building ready to be upfitted, as well as access to a good workforce and supply chain in the Southeast.