SNOHOMISH — The city’s last remaining mill is shutting down after almost 75 years.
The Seattle-Snohomish Mill, a family-owned company that has been in business since 1941, plans to close this summer, laying off 68 people.
The company expects to shut down the sawmill at 9525 Airport Way by the end of this month when it runs through the last of its logs. The firm’s planing mill, which produces surfaced, finished lumber, will likely close by the end of July, said Megan McMurray, the mill’s president.
The market is overloaded with lumber, and there is too little demand, McMurray said. She doesn’t expect that to change any time soon.
“In general, as a business owner, you have to assess the market and assess the bottom line,” McMurray said.
It’s difficult to compete with much larger companies around the Northwest and Canadian companies that are producing lumber, she said.
“It had nothing to do with my employees’ experience, performance or attitude,” McMurray said. “It had everything to do with the market.”
Snohomish City Manager Larry Bauman said mills have been an important part of the city’s heritage. He said he had hoped Seattle-Snohomish would be among the survivors in the shrinking lumber industry.
“Mills were a really big part of the city’s early history,” he said. “It’s the end of an era for us.”
The recession caused havoc with the building industry locally and nationally. The Seattle-Snohomish Mill shut down for eight months in 2012 and continued to struggle after re-opening.
The housing market has shown signs of a comeback, but it’s been slow. Snohomish County issued 3,731 building permits for residential units in 2006. That dropped to 1,362 during the recession in 2010. Last year, the county issued 2,034 building permits.
Meanwhile, there’s a glut of lumber on the market, McMurray said.
In 2013, the most recent year for which the state Department of Natural Resources has data, private companies harvested roughly 3.1 million board feet of timber in Washington. That’s well above the 2.2 million board feet harvested in 2009.
Many companies have closed mills, laid off workers or cut their hours in response to the market.
Since 2007, 10 lumber companies in Washington have filed notices with the state of pending employee layoffs or mill closures, according the Employment Security Department.
Shelton’s Simpson Lumber Company is closing June 25, leaving 275 employees without work. Darrington’s Hampton Lumber Mill laid off 76 workers in in 2011 and Woodinville Lumber closed, leaving another 76 people without work.
Workforce Snohomish is working with the city and Seattle-Snohomish Mill to see what help can be offered to laid-off employees to find new jobs.
McMurray is a fourth-generation owner of the mill. She took over as president from her father, Bob Waltz, two years ago. She praised her employees, some of whom have worked with her father and her grandfather.
“I’ve been so thankful that we’ve had such a good group of employees,” McMurray said “We have some guys who have 40 years with the company. That’s a big deal to me.”
While she’s looking at her options, McMurray doesn’t see herself ever reopening the Seattle-Snohomish Mill again.
“This is permanent for me, I’m not looking to come back,” McMurray said. “The goal would be to see this place be a sawmill and run in some capacity, but I would not be involved. I just don’t see it.”
Amy Nile: 425-339-3192; anile@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @AmyNileReports.
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