A Portland, Oregon lumber company is setting up shop in Peachtree City — and the office it's opening here is designed to sell the output of one of the largest sawmill investments in the recent history of the American South.
Hampton Lumber is opening a Southern Yellow Pine Sales Division office in Peachtree City to market and sell southern yellow pine, according to building-products.com. The company is actively hiring wholesale lumber traders to staff it.
The Peachtree City office is the commercial backbone of Hampton's broader push into the U.S. South, which centers on a $225-million southern yellow pine sawmill now in the final stages of construction in Allendale County, South Carolina. The 375,000-square-foot facility is expected to begin production in early 2027, according to building-products.com.
Leading the new division is Eric Kjode, who serves as general manager of southern pine sales. Kjode brings 25 years of forestry industry experience to the role, having previously served as a general manager at Interfor overseeing southern yellow pine sales and strategy, according to building-products.com.
The move marks a significant geographic shift for Hampton Lumber, which has historically operated sawmills in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia, according to holzkurier.com. The Allendale County mill — with construction groundbreaking reported on November 5 by euwid-holz.de — is the company's first major foray into the pine-producing U.S. Southeast.
Canadian machinery manufacturer Comact, based in Mirabel and formerly known as BID Group, is serving as general contractor for the South Carolina sawmill build. The contract covers the saw line, three kiln dryers, and a planer mill, according to holzkurier.com. The mill is expected to create up to 140 jobs and will primarily process southern yellow pine into construction lumber.
Southern yellow pine is the dominant structural lumber species in the U.S. South and a primary material in residential and commercial construction framing. Hampton Lumber has grown aggressively in recent years — acquiring Idaho Timber in 2022 and entering engineered wood products through the purchase of RedBuilt, which added cross-laminated timber, glulam, LVL, I-joists, and wall panels to its portfolio, according to holzkurier.com.
For Peachtree City, the office represents a new kind of corporate arrival: not a retailer or service business, but a wholesale lumber trading operation tied directly to a quarter-billion-dollar manufacturing investment one state away. How many jobs the local office will ultimately support has not been disclosed.
Why it matters — Peachtree City gains a corporate wholesale lumber trading office directly tied to one of the largest new sawmill investments in the Southeast, signaling the city's appeal as a regional business hub for the forest products industry.
⚠ Not yet confirmed
- Groundbreaking for the Allendale County sawmill took place on November 5 in Fairfax, SC
Reported by building-products.com, holzkurier.com, euwid-holz.de
Where this comes from
Written by Papalocal's AI from these outlets' reporting. It can miss or misread things; the outlets are the record.