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AHF is at 3840 Hempland Road in West Hempfield Township Wednesday, July 6, 2022.

AHF is at 3840 Hempland Road in West Hempfield Township Wednesday, July 6, 2022.

West Hempfield Township-based AHF Products is closing its Titusville plant in western Pennsylvania and shifting select solid and engineered wood flooring products to plants in West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. 

The move will leave 98 people out of work by Oct. 30, AHF said in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice with the state Department of Labor & Industry, a requirement under federal law when a company anticipates a mass layoff is possible within 60 days.

The move comes as the flooring company adjusts to changing market conditions and follows its acquisition of three flooring plants from bankrupt Armstrong Flooring in July. 

“This decision was not made lightly, as we recognize the impact of a plant closure on a community such as Titusville,” AHF President and CEO Brian Carson told the state. “Unfortunately, more expensive local lumber costs and the lack of equipment to dry lumber on site does not allow us to scale production.” 

Carson said in a statement to LNP | LancasterOnline that “the change to the manufacturing footprint comes after extensive internal and external market analysis to align with the company's ongoing efforts to simplify the business model while improving both profitability and competitive positioning.” The Titusville plant represented less than 1% of the company’s manufacturing capacity, he said.

Carson said the difficult decision was a necessary step in enhancing AHF’s other manufacturing capabilities and paving the way for future investments that will make the company stronger.

“The cost and service improvements that AHF Products can realize by manufacturing the hardwood flooring produced at Titusville at our other U.S. facilities will help our business and create additional jobs at those locations and allow us to better serve our customers,” Carson said.

AHF has plans to expand its 39-acre Kankakee facility, according to the Kankakee Daily Journal. The company wants to increase Kankakee’s workforce from 290 to more than 350 in the “not-too-distant future,” Carson told the newspaper.

In a separate statement, AHF said it has finalized the planned closing of its small Oneida, Tennessee, plant that manufactures floor cleaners. The closure was announced in 2019 and is concluding in October. There are currently four employees at this facility, the company said.

After acquiring the Armstrong assets, the company now operates nine manufacturing facilities – five wood plants and three vinyl facilities in the U.S., including one on Dillerville Road in Lancaster city, and one engineered hardwood plant in Cambodia. Three domestic distribution facilities serve customers through a multi-channel strategy that includes dealers, home centers and distributors. 

AHF, the wood-flooring division of Armstrong Flooring that was spun off in 2018, is owned by Dallas-based private equity firm Paceline Equity Partners. Since the spin-off, AHF has made four acquisitions in the last four years, including Armstrong Flooring. It has branched out into luxury vinyl tile manufacturing.

A few weeks before AHF bought the Armstrong Flooring plants, it sold five of its facilities for more than $60 million in a leaseback deal with Broadstone Net Lease based in Rochester, New York. AHF paid $24 million for Armstrong Flooring’s two Lancaster County facilities. 

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It’s not likely they will see all of that money, if any.

AHF CEO Brian Carson said proceeds from the sale-leaseback are earmarked for reinvestments to grow the business, including the Armstrong Flooring assets and wood flooring automation. 

The $107 million sale of Armstrong Flooring’s North American assets to a group led by West H…

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