LF losing boat plant

A week after the Little Falls community learned that a boat factory may be hiring back a few hundred workers in the next several months, another Little Falls boat factory announced it was closing its doors.

Brunswick Corp. announced Wednesday that it plans to close its boat factory in Little Falls, moving its production of Crestliner and Triton boats and pontoons to plants in New York Mills; Lebanon, Mo.; and Fort Wayne, Ind.

Little Falls Mayor Cathy VanRisseghem said the factory's 180 employees were told of the closure Tuesday, as was the city.

Originally, the company employed more than 400 workers but those jobs were lost due to layoffs during the last 1-1/2 years, said VanRisseghem.

Brunswick announced that production would be phased out beginning in May. VanRisseghem said the city was told by company officials that a skeleton crew of about 12 employees would stay on through September to handle paperwork involving sales and warranties. She said it is assumed that the building will be put up for sale.

"The city offered Brunswick anything we could do but they said the decision would not be reversed," said VanRisseghem. "It's very sad and hard on the community, but this is a great town. It's got some really great people and we're going to move forward. I've got the utmost hope it's going to get much better."

VanRisseghem said the community's heritage is boatmaking, beginning when Paul Larson opened Larson Boat Works in 1925 on the east side of the Mississippi River. He began making aluminum boats, which became Crestliner Inc., in Little Falls in 1946.

On Jan. 21 Minneapolis businessman Irwin Jacobs announced he reached a deal to buy back the Larson, Seaswirl and FinCraft brands of boats and the Little Falls factory where they're produced, according to the Star Tribune. Jacobs is the former chief executive officer of Genmar Holdings, which owned 13 boat brands, including the Larson, Seaswirl and FinCraft brands, but filed for bankruptcy in June and was forced to auction them off last month.

Jacobs told the Star Tribune last week that he was "cautiously optimistic" that about 200-300 people could be called back to work in Little Falls over the next several months. The company had employed about 800 workers but is now down to about 125 employees, said VanRisseghem.

"I think most folks in the community have hope that there are some things coming down the road," said VanRisseghem. "We have four generations of families building boats in Little Falls. They've learned how to do it and so have their children and their children and they do it well. We're aggressively seeking new businesses for Little Falls all the time. Who knows, the big one might just walk in the door."

(This story contains information provided by The Associated Press.)

JODIE TWEED may be reached at jodie.tweed@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5858.