Manufactured home builder Clayton Homes Inc. of Maryville, Tennessee, announced Tuesday evening that it’s investing $42 million in an expansion of its home-building operations in Conway.
The project is expected to create more than 250 jobs over three years, the company said in a news release.
Clayton, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, will modernize an existing 220,000-SF manufacturing facility at 901 McNutt Rd. formerly occupied by mobile-home maker Spirit Homes Inc. of Conway.
The facility is estimated to produce 3,000 homes annually. Employees will build homes in an indoor, air-conditioned environment, protected from weather elements like heat, rain and snow.
Renovation and equipment installation is scheduled to begin in December, with home production projected to start in the summer of 2025.
The company will begin hiring while the facility is being renovated, with plans to recruit nearly 200 workers in its first year of operation. Hires will be made for a broad range of positions, including home construction, environmental health and safety, materials management, customer care, sales and human resources.
“With the need for affordable housing greater than ever, Conway is an ideal location to expand our modern manufactured home building operations” Keith Holdbrooks, Clayton Home Building Group CEO and executive chairman, said in the release.
Clayton builds single-family manufactured, tiny and modular housing. The company built more than 52,000 homes across the country in 2023.
“Today’s announcement that Clayton is locating its new manufacturing facility in Conway is a major win for Arkansas,” Clint O’Neal, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said in the release. “Clayton is a leader in the modern manufactured housing industry, and we are proud to welcome them to Conway. Congratulations to the local community on this economic development win, which will create new opportunities in the area.”
The state offered Clayton the following incentives for the project: the Tax Back program, which provides sales and use tax refunds on the purchase of building materials and taxable machinery, and seven years of the Create Rebate program, an annual cash rebate based on the number of jobs added by a company and targeted wages.
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