Farmers Home Furniture CEO and Chairman Phillip Faircloth, company President Clint Hall and Russellville Mayor David Grissom share a joke after the industry announcement welcome a Farmers distribution center to Russellville.

Russellville Mayor David Grissom got the chance to utter one of his favorite phrases Monday: “It’s a great day in the City of Russellville.”

In front of a standing-room only crowd at Russellville City Hall, the city, the county and the Franklin County Development Authority welcomed Farmers Home Furniture, which will be bringing a distribution center to Russellville Industrial Park, representing a promise of 80 new jobs and a $10 million investment.

Farmers purchased a 325,000 square foot building previously occupied by Style Crest, following several months of discussions and negotiations among Style Crest, the FCDA, the state economic development office and Farmers. Interestingly, FCDA executive director Mitch Mays noted, the building was long ago a distribution center for Heilig-Meyers.

“They’ll use the whole building, and they’ll use it for what it was originally intended for,” Mays said.

Company Chairman and CEO Phillip Faircloth said Farmers Home Furniture is “tickled to death” to locate a distribution center in Russellville, with factors like proximity to its growing retail presence across the Southeast along with availability of a suitable site and skilled workforce making the decision to locate in Russellville an easy one.

Faircloth said the distribution center is set to begin operations in January 2017. Russellville’s will be the second big distribution center for the company, with the first being located in Dublin, Ga., with the home office. The company, which opened in 1949, currently boasts 198 stores across the Southeast, with 35 of those in Alabama.

“This is a central point for us for distributing our furniture,” Faircloth said.

“Here’s what we love about Russellville,” company President Clint Hall added. “We come from a small town. Russellville looks like where we come from. We believe small towns deserve just as much service, just as much value, just as much opportunity as big towns.”

“This new distribution center, investment and jobs created by Farmers will be a major boost to our local economy,” Grissom pointed out. “Every single job is important for a family here in Russellville. We’ve been very fortunate over the past three and a half years with job announcements.”

The company will begin operations with about 30 new jobs and aims to grow its workforce to 80 – from unskilled labor through managers and information technology specialists – over the course of several years as the company continues to grow its retail base.