By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Consolidated Pipe & Supply Company, Inc., which currently has its headquarters on the campus of Birmingham-Southern College, will invest $28.7 million to relocate its corporate headquarters off Lakeshore Parkway in Birmingham and create at least 40 new full-time jobs.
The Jefferson County Commission voted on Thursday to provide economic incentives of up to $290,000 and the relocation is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2028, according to the company.
The average annual salary for the jobs will be about $58,000, according to Consolidated Pipe, which will combine its distribution and warehousing operations and management for the sale of pipes, fittings, and values, as well as expand its pipe coating function and facilities at the Lakeshore location and one at Avenue V in Ensley.
“Consolidated Pipe has a long history in Jefferson County, dating back to 1960,” said Jeff Traywick, Economic Development Advisor for the Commission. “With several operations in Birmingham and Bessemer, they make a significant contribution to our local economy. Ensuring that their corporate operations stay here and that they have the ability to also grow their Ensley operation will ensure that they continue their presence in the area for many years to come.”
Commissioner Mike Bolin, chairman of the commission’s economic development committee, said, “providing businesses and industry, like Consolidated Pipe, both the ability and the inclination to always remain in Jefferson County is government at its best … successful economic development plans ultimately provide good pay checks to both its new and existing employees. It just does not get any better than that.”
Consolidated Pipe has operated a coating facility and warehouse in Ensley since July 1960, one of its 70 locations across the country. It manufactures pipe for use in water, sewer and gas lines. It’s owned by the Kerr family, which is in its third generation of ownership, Consolidated Pipe CEO Barry Howton said last year.
There would be some storage of mostly PVC and polyethylene pipe on the 14 developed acres of the new campus, Howton told the Birmingham City Council in September. The remainder of the property will remain wooded to provide a buffer from nearby neighborhoods.
The office on the BSC campus was intended for 60 employees, but now has 100 employees, Howton said.
Once the new headquarters is built, it will make room to add another 20 new jobs, he said.
Over the life of the project, even with incentives in place, the county expects the project to generate more than $2.1 million in tax revenue, of which $945,990 will go to county schools, said Traywick. “To put this into perspective, that would equal about 13,500 new textbooks or about 19 new teachers and this doesn’t even include the new revenues to the city and state,” he said.
The Birmingham City Council in September approved rezoning for a light manufacturing district for 28 acres located at 705 Tom Martin Drive and 801 Lakeshore Parkway. The new Consolidated Pipe headquarters would include a corporate office, sales office and distribution center.
Howton told the council at the time that the company had already donated its current headquarters building, valued at $2.5 million, to Birmingham-Southern College in December 2022 and since January 2023 has been paying BSC rent.
Traywick said last week that the county’s incentives, combined with support from Birmingham and Alabama, offset costs of the site development “which is significant due to topography and need to extend sewer service to the site.”
