The Valdese Town Council after a closed session voted to enter into an agreement to acquire the former Valdese Textiles building which is located at 1901 Main St., East across from College Plaza to try to keep a local industry in town. Meridian Specialty Yarn Group plans to then purchase the building from the town for a possible expansion of its business.

Meridian Specialty Yarn Group addresses the needs in the textiles industry from knitting and weaving and craft making yarn to package dyeing. It has evolved considerably to keep up with the changing needs of the marketplace. They have two production plants, in Ranlo and Valdese, North Carolina, specialize in novelty yarn manufacturing and in yarn dyeing, respectively. Meridian has grown from a $35 million company in the early 1980’s to a $300 million company today.

The town will use $3 million of Meridian’s money to make the purchase. The company will deposit the $3 million in a trust account for the town to buy the building. The town will then transfer the building to Meridian.

The reason for the town making the purchase is because the owner of the building prefers to negotiate with the town on the sale.

But there are still a lot of negotiations that have to take place before the purchase is completed. The town has 60 days to complete the sale of the building.

Meridian, which presently has 200 work force, on expanding their operation, it would be adding another 75 jobs and a capital investment of $4 million. It also would mean a 50 percent increase in water and sewer capacity.