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Drywall Plant Soon Will Go By The Board

Tribune file photo by CLIFF McBRIDE (2007)

“People are dumbfounded; they can’t believe it’s closing,” says Hiram Aviles, a 29-year employee of National Gypsum.

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By MARK HOLAN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 9, 2008

TAMPA - After nearly 50 years of turning quarried rock into wallboard, the National Gypsum Co. will shut down its Port Tampa plant next week, leaving dozens of workers without jobs and sending economic ripples beyond the historic waterfront community.

"This is probably one of the oldest employers in the area," said plant supervisor Hiram "Hy" Aviles, a 29-year employee who lives two miles away. "People are dumbfounded; they can't believe it's closing."

In addition to about 70 plant workers, nine to 12 Cypress Truck Lines employees who jockey trucks into plant loading docks and drape tarps over the rigs are being laid off.

National Gypsum announced in April that it would halt production and the last wallboard panels rolled off the production line more than a week ago. June 16 is the last scheduled workday.

Four or five workers will remain at the plant to maintain equipment and monitor occasional shipments of gypsum rock from Canada, company spokeswoman Nancy Spurlock said.

She blames a 60 percent downturn in housing construction for the closure.

"While we sincerely believe the Florida market will come back, it is impossible for us to predict when," Spurlock wrote in an e-mail reply to questions from The Tampa Tribune. "It may take a couple of years for the market to come back to previous levels."

Some plant employees and Port Tampa residents wonder whether the plant will ever reopen, renewing speculation about redeveloping the industrial waterfront if the real estate market heats up again.

Others hope the closing will last only a few months since the plant frequently handled specialized requests involving odd wallboard lengths or small orders.

"We call it a novelty plant," Aviles said. "That might work in our favor."

National Gypsum's 7-year-old plant in Apollo Beach, which typically uses its faster production line for large, conventional orders, will consolidate work from Port Tampa.

Spurlock said employees earn an average of $23 an hour. The loss of those wages is already hitting pocketbooks beyond the plant gates at 6110 Commerce St.

"It has impacted us very much," said Renee Munoz, a bartender at Tillie's Place, the first bar past the port's gritty industrial zone.

Thirsty nightshift workers once justified opening the bar at 7 a.m. But the late shift and some 35 jobs began to disappear last fall as National Gypsum closed the first of two production lines.

"Now we don't open until 11 a.m. and there aren't as many guys," Munoz said.

Sales also are slower at V.T. Clark's, the neighborhood's landmark convenience store.

Corporate Service Group, a Tampa vending company, must find new locations for the 10 snack machines it installed in the plant last year.

"We can't leave the machines in there for five people," company president Brad Bartholomew said. "All that stuff we would have sold in there will no longer get sold."

He said it takes about three years to recoup the $4,000 investment in each machine.

Last year, National Gypsum opened a $125 million plant in Mount Holly, N.C., near Charlotte, creating 100 jobs.

Pete Peterson, senior vice president of Cypress Truck Lines in Jacksonville, said his company successfully pursued hauling contracts at the new plant, anticipating the Port Tampa closing.

"This will still impact us," he said, "but it will not be as great."

Serving Florida Home Builders

Business tycoon Henry Plant created the port from swampland in the 1880s. The National Gypsum site contained railroad warehouses and steamship docks until the 1950s, when the area was expanded with dredge spoils from widening the industrial channel.

National Gypsum opened the plant in 1962 at a cost of $6.5 million, or about $45 million in today's dollars. At the time, the company was serving Florida home builders from a plant in Savannah, Ga.

"Continued economic growth in the South, and in Florida in particular, indicates the need for us to provide additional facilities including this new plant in Port Tampa," the company wrote in a 1960 news release announcing the project.

At the time, Florida's population was about 5 million; today it tops 18 million. More than 2.4 million housing units have been built statewide since 1990.

The Port Tampa plant, which added a second production line in 1986, is among the oldest of National Gypsum's 21 wallboard facilities. The company is also closing its 48-year-old plant in Loraine, Ohio, eliminating 58 jobs.

National Gypsum paid about $376,000 in local business and property taxes this year at Port Tampa. Spurlock said the 30-acre site isn't for sale, although the Tampa Port Authority's master plan anticipates future land-use changes in the area.

"We will maintain a supply of gypsum rock at Tampa as a backstop for Apollo Beach," she said.

Environmental, Safety Concerns

As workers prepare the plant for its indefinite slumber, city and county agencies are trying to resolve regulatory problems at the site.

The Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission wants National Gypsum to pay for pollution violations the agency says occurred at Port Tampa from August 2003 through January, when the plant's air permit was modified.

Formaldehyde and other chemicals used for moisture resistance and mildew prevention in wallboard seeped into the air when National Gypsum changed its manufacturing process, said Sterlin Woodard, assistant director of the EPC's air management division.

He said testing found the chemical levels were small and didn't pose a public health risk but still violated the plant's permit.

Spurlock said the company has made "good faith efforts" to modify the permit since discovering similar problems at other plants about two years ago.

The air permit expires in October 2010 and can be extended during a shutdown.

Tampa Fire Rescue also has notified the company of problems with its fire sprinkler system, discovered during a January inspection. The company has until June 19 to fix the problems, which must be done even if production is stopped.

Spurlock said a new electronic monitoring system is being installed and employees or hired security will be at the plant around the clock.

The closing will have at least one benefit in Port Tampa, especially along busy Commerce Street and West Shore and Interbay boulevards.

"It's going to mean a lot less truck traffic," community activist Kevin Dwyer said.

Reporter Mark Holan can be reached at (813) 835-2102 or mholan@tampatrib.com.

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