Escalating steel prices, supply uncertainty, recent losses and location have led Williams Bridge Company to a decision to move its girder manufacturing plant from the Manassas area to Richmond.
Company vice president, Marianne Pastor, said a heavy industry might not fit in anymore with new neighbors and the potential for future development off Wellington Road near Bethlehem Road where the FBI and the Prince William Police Department have recently put up new buildings.
“Quite candidly the real estate we’re sitting on is not necessarily at the highest and best use fabricating steel,” Pastor said.“We aren’t exactly the darlings of the neighborhood.”
Girders from the company, which moved to the Manassas area in 1987, go to build roadways in New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.
The move will happen over time, Pastor said.
“You don’t move a heavy steel fabrication company overnight unless someone is throwing incredible sums of money at you to do that,” Pastor said.
Right now no one is throwing money at the company for its land, but Pastor said the move would leave the company “poised” to take advantage when the real estate market rebounds.
“We are going to position ourselves to maximize its value,” Pastor said.
Roughly 20 jobs are on the line at the Manassas plant, but Pastor said many of the people who work for the company live in Culpeper and would have a shorter commute to Richmond.
“This is not a bad thing either for our employees or for the company,” Pastor said.
The company’s departure might not be bad for the area either, Pastor said.
“The big company that created some noise is not going to be as noisy and is not going to be as visible as it was in years gone past,” Pastor said.
In its third quarter, which ended in April, the company showed about $9.5 million in revenue and a loss of $465,000, said a company press release.
For the nine months that ended April 30, the company reported revenues of $28.7 million with $1.17 million in losses.
The company also owns S.I.P. Inc. of Delaware which manufactures high-tech road beds to hold concrete and a construction crane company called William Construction Services.
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