Puckett Machinery’s new Flowood facilityJACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) -
Jackson is losing one of its oldest businesses. Puckett Machinery is moving from its location on Highway 80 to Flowood.
The new headquarters for the Caterpillar heavy-machinery dealer will be on Flowood Drive, west of Underwood Drive. The new headquarters will be a 150,000-square-foot, $30 million facility, and about 200 employees will move with it to Flowood.
The site preparation is well underway. The site work must be complete by September 1, according to Mayor Gary Rhoads of Flowood. Puckett hopes to open in the fall of 2013.
Puckett Machinery first opened as Stribling Brothers Machinery in Jackson in 1941. Ben Puckett began working at the company in 1953, and it later became Stribling-Puckett. The Pucketts bought out the other partners in the early 1980s.
Ben Puckett's son Richard, now CEO of the company, said crime in Jackson was a factor in the move.
"There's a number of reasons we chose Rankin County and Flowood," he said. "Being in a better tax rate -- business community is another factor for us. (Also) access to the interstate system on Flowood Drive into our facility."
Mayor Rhoads is emphatic in saying he did not ask the company to move to Flowood, but he welcomes the move.
"Mr. Puckett came to see us in the city of Flowood," he said. "He had found a site, he had made his mind up that they had to move for the space that they needed."
The new site is 42 acres.
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