WARREN, Ohio – Insteel Wire Products Co. has sold its plant along West Market Street for $5.3 million – less than a year after the company acquired, and then abruptly closed, the local operation.
Records from the Trumbull County Auditor’s office show that Georgia-based Shaw Lane Real Estate LLC purchased the building and 16.4 acres at 3121 W. Market St. on Aug. 8.
The entity lists its address as 250 Southwell Blvd., Tifton, Ga. This is the same address as Exlabesa Extrusions, approximately two and a half hours south of Atlanta.
Exlabesa is a global aluminum extrusion company based in Spain that manufactures products for the energy, automotive, construction, infrastructure and transportation markets, according to its website. The Georgia site is the company’s sole U.S. manufacturing center.
Aside from the Tifton location, the company has nine other production sites in seven countries – the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Morocco, according to its website. Exlabesa also operates 22 work centers across three continents.
Calls to Exlabesa’s Tifton offices were not immediately returned.
Still, Mike Keys, Warren community development director, said the sale of the building and a potential new tenant is great news for the city, especially in West Warren, where industrial growth is now taking shape.
“It’s always nice to see companies willing to invest in the city of Warren,” he said. “Especially with all that’s going on in the Westlawn area.”
A new speculative building at the West Warren Industrial Park is nearly finished, and there is plenty of land to develop in that portion of the city. A new manufacturing or distribution operation in the former Insteel plant would fit perfectly, Keys said.
“It’s a big part of what we would like to see happening over there anyway,” he said.
North Carolina-based Insteel Wire Products, a subsidiary of Insteel Industries, acquired the plant and land for $7 million as part of its purchase of Engineered Wire Products on Oct. 21, 2024. The plant manufactured steel reinforcement bar, or rebar, that is used for concrete infrastructure projects and other purposes.
In December, the company announced it would close the Warren plant, affecting 35 employees.
“Given the low-capacity utilization levels at our Warren facility and the dim prospects for improvement, we believe this action is essential to reducing our operating costs and strengthening our competitive position,” Insteel CEO H.O. Woltz III said in a statement in December.
The Warren plant was constructed in 2008 as Reinforcement Systems Inc. and was developed by Warren native Mark Marvin. The plant was among the first investments in years on the city’s west side. Engineered Wire Products purchased the plant and land in 2014 for $3.25 million.