By Jackie Seabolt
Enterprise Record

HIGH POINT – Ashley Furniture officially announced its plans last week at the High Point Furniture Market  to open a state-of-the-art furniture facility in Davie County.
The facility will occupy the former RJ Reynolds plant off Baltimore Road in Advance and bring more than 500 jobs to the county by 2017.
“Ashley is committed to create 550 jobs over the next five years and invest 80 million dollars in land, buildings, material, and equipment to Davie County,” Deputy Secretary of Commerce Dale Carroll said.
Ashley CEO Todd Wanek said that initially, an existing 418,000 square-foot building on the site will be used for distribution. “We expect to be delivering furniture from that facility by October or November of this year.”
Immediate plans are to begin construction on a 507,000 sq. ft. addition which will eventually turn into the distribution facility and the 418,000 square feet will become an upholstery manufacturing facility.
Long-term plans are to expand the current 1.7 million square feet of buildings and structures at the site to a 3.3 million square feet furniture facility. “We want to bring the best of distribution technologies, transportation technologies, and manufacturing technologies …