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Brunswick Corporation expands boat production capacity to meet unprecedented global demand
Brunswick CorporationJanuary 25, 2021 GMT
METTAWA, Ill., Jan. 25, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC) today announced that it is increasing production capacity at three of its global boat manufacturing facilities to meet unprecedented consumer demand and assist in replenishing historically low field inventory levels.
Brunswick will reopen its 225,000 square-foot Palm Coast, Florida boat manufacturing facility to expand dedicated manufacturing capability for Boston Whaler products by an additional 40 percent. The Palm Coast facility, which has been inactive since 2018, was designed for the manufacture of large boats.
Get ready for that familiar sight again as Boston Whaler will take over its sister Sea Ray’s plant, abandoned two and a half years ago. (Rusty Clark)
Two and a half years after the Sea Ray plant shut down off Colbert Lane, eliminating some 440 high-paying, manufacturing jobs, the plant will reopen very soon under the banner of Boston Whaler, a boat builder owned by Sea Ray’s parent, Brunswick Corp.
Boston Whaler will bring back 300 to 400 jobs within 24 months, Palm Coast Mayor Milissa Holland said this afternoon. The first boat is expected to roll off the assembly line in the second half of 2021. The city’s announcement caps a whirling six months of major economic-development victories for Palm Coast.
Just a little over two years after closing its Sea Ray Boats plant in Palm Coast, Illinois-based Brunswick Corp. on Monday announced plans to reopen it, this time as a plant for its Edgewater-based Boston Whaler boat line.
The reopening of the plant as a Boston Whaler facility is expected to create 300 to 400 jobs over the next 18 to 24 months.
Those jobs will be in addition to the 1,200 workers Boston Whaler employs at its 550,000-square-foot division headquarters/main plant off of U.S. 1 in the Southeast Volusia County city of Edgewater.
The 225,000-square-foot former Sea Ray plant is off Roberts Road, just north of State Road 100. The plant is in unincorporated Flagler County, but Palm Coast Mayor Millissa Holland said the city has agreed to annex the property at Brunswick Corp.'s request. The company already owns the property and put it up for sale when it decided to close the Sea Ray plant. It has since been taken off the market.