Texas-based Acme Brick Co. will officially shut its Minnesota operations for good later this year, a move that will affect 19 employees.
The company will keep its Edina sales office open to serve customer orders through Sept. 30. Its Great Lakes Plant in Springfield, Minn., which stopped producing bricks in 2014, will not restart production as expected. Instead it will sell its remaining inventory at the Edina facility and through select distributors.
Acme acquired the Great Lakes Plant in January 2008. It was Minnesota's last operating brick plant and was formerly part of Ochs Brick Co.
"We saw an opportunity to preserve brick making in Minnesota and to expand our 'footprint' into the Upper Midwest," said Bill Lemond, senior vice president of sales. "But market conditions forced us to suspend brickmaking at Springfield in fall 2014 and the market has not recovered sufficiently to reopen our plant."
Dee DePass • 612-673-7725
