Titewire LLC leases site at BusinessPlex
A new manufacturer making a tool for installing barbed wire fencing is expected to soon occupy one of the vacant buildings at the Marion County BusinessPlex.
The Board of Supervisors recently signed a lease with Titewire USA LLC beginning Feb. 1 for the site vacated last year when the Columbia Parachute Company closed.
“We will have five employees for now, and we’ll add more as we grow,” Michael J. Tolley, who owns the startup along with Jeffrey Kenney, said. “We are going to do manufacturing. We’ve got plasma cutters and a milling machine. We will put our products together in the same building. We’ll make the parts, box them up and ship them out. We are waiting on our equipment to get it started.”
Tolley is from Columbia, and Kenney is from Hattiesburg. Tolley told the Board about the products that would be manufactured at the facility.
“We’re talking to a distributor, and they’ll be sent out all over the world,” he said. “We’ll have a website. We are currently working on our patent in Australia. This is a product for installing or fixing barbed wire fencing.”
The building they’re in was the former East Columbia School building when it was the Columbia Training School. In recent years the state donated the campus on Sumrall Road to the county, which is marketing it to a variety of potential businesses.
The building currently houses the BusinessPlex Community Room and the Columbia Law Enforcement Training Academy.
Work had been done on the section used by the parachute manufacturer before that company folded.
The lease will be $1,800 per month for a one-year contract.
Board Attorney Joe Shepard said it would run from Feb. 1, 2018, until Jan. 31, 2019, and could be renewed. Payments are due monthly.
The Board approved it on a motion by District 4 Supervisor Raymon Rowell and a second by District 5 Supervisor Calvin Newsom.
“We’ve got to get a few more ducks in a row,” Tolley said. “We need to find out when the equipment will get here. We should be up and running within a few weeks.”
