$12M manufactured-home factory planned for Skagit Valley

Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - July 19, 2006
A $12 million, 132,000-square-foot facility to build manufactured homes is being planned in Skagit County.

Steve Benner, president of Transform LLC, said the factory will be built on a 10-acre site in the Bay Ridge Business Park near the Skagit Regional Airport, west of Burlington.

The factory will be able to churn out more than 1,000 manufactured homes per year, he said. Construction on the factory is expected to begin this summer, with homes coming off the assembly line in the first quarter of 2007, he added.

About 50 people will work in the automated plant, a smaller work force than similar manufactured-housing plants in the United States. Benner said the plant will use "state-of-the-art" equipment from a "proven European" manufacturer that he declined to name.

He said the factory will use "Toyota production and lean manufacturing" techniques to build manufactured homes, which will be shipped to developers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Northern California and western Montana.

Benner said Transform will reach $30 million in annual sales in its first three years.