Excel Weighs Re-Starting Maine Modular Home Factory

The president and chief operating officer of Excel Homes said Thursday he will continue to monitor the economy in Maine and decide as early as June whether the former Oxford Homes plant will be reopened, according to a report by the local newspaper, The Sun Journal.

"It's a tough market although we continue to fair well. But we haven't generated enough business to reopen the plant today," Steve Scharnhorst, president and chief operating officer of Excel Homes, told reporter Leslie H. Dixon.

Excel Homes bought the assets of Oxford Homes last summer after the modular home manufacturer ceased operations in April 2008 and had hoped to reopen the plant this spring. In December, Scharnhorst said that if the economic conditions were favorable, the Route 26 plant would be reopened as early as this spring, bringing in an additional 50 to 70 hourly and salaried jobs to the area.

"I wish I could jump up and down and be optimistic," Scharnhorst said in a telephone interview Thursday.

He said the company continues to have a solid base in the Maine modular home building business but not enough to reopen its Oxford plant now. "We continue to serve a great base in Maine," Scharnhorst said.

Excel Homes manufactures Excel and Avis homes with facilities in Liverpool and Avis, Pa., and in Marlboro, N.Y. Scharnhorst said home buyers are just not optimistic about the economic conditions but he believes that will change in time.