New Phenix fabrication facility to consolidate quarry operations on site

28,000 square feet, 20 jobs incoming at quarry
 
A new building is under construction at the Phenix limestone quarry near Ash Grove. The Phenix Marble
Company is building a fabrication facility on-site at the quarry.
Currently, stone is mined by Phenix at the quarry, but it is then shipped to their facilities in Willard and
Springfield for slabbing, polishing and other work. David Karr, president of Phenix, said the new facility
will allow the company to do all that at the quarry, saving time and money in transportation costs.
“We just got to the point where we needed to make an investment for the future,” he said, “and that
(building) is, in effect, going to be a real state-of-the-art fabrication with all the equipment you can source
in the world; most of it is coming from Italy. We’ll have slabbing and polishing and cut-to-size ... action
going on. A lot of overhead handling with cranes and things like that. So, it’s really a modern facility to
support the quarry’s growth.”
Timeline for operation
Karr said Phenix hopes to have their new facility open by “late third quarter,” but fully expects to be
operational before year’s end.
“We’re pushing hard on right now on it,” he said. The schedule isn’t 100-percent because there are so
many moving parts, and part of the coordination is we have to bring in technicians literally from Italy to
come and do final installation and testing on the equipment. We’re trying to trim days off of the schedule
because we would like to be up and running as soon as possible.”
Lots of square footage, many jobs
When it is finished, the main building will measure 28,000 square feet in size, excluding some other
exterior buildings. Karr said the new facility will bring 20 jobs to the area in quarrying and fabrication, as
well as other jobs in support areas, such as payroll.
“We’ve got good-paying jobs with good benefits,” he said.
During the facility’s construction, Karr added, Phenix is taking care not to damage the historical
structures at the quarry.
“The quarry has an operating permit that has some historical preservation aspects to that as part of our
zoning,” he said, “and we fully support all of the historic preservation aspects of that existing permit,
mainly because we care a lot about the history of the quarry itself. The last thing we would want to do is
diminish the history-telling of the site, so all of the historic structures and landmarking things that are part
of quarry, we’re preserving that, just because ... our branding of what we’re doing today really dovetails
on the rich history that exists.”