KINGSTON, N.Y. >> Do not try telling Peter Fenwick or Larry Zalinsky that there’s no profit to be made using an old-fashioned manufacturing business model.
The two just figure that, in actual practice, it’s got to be done with a more sophisticated technological bent.
PHOTO GALLERY: Community Manufacturing Solutions in Kingston.
Zalinsky, a Kingston resident, and Fenwick, who hails from Saugerties, have recently set up a fabric-cutting shop in the former 10,000-square-foot Armour Dynamics building at the Kingston Business Park off Delaware Avenue.
Soon, there’ll be sewing machines – the industrial, state-of-the art, computer-driven kind – in place at the Community Manufacturing Solutions plant.
Fenwick is president of Community Manufacturing Solutions. Zalinsky is operations manager.
Fenwick grew up in Hurley, helping with his family’s business, Stucki Embroidering. The company, which closed five years ago, was known for making the stars for American flags.
Zalinsky had run a company called Elite Carry Systems for 25 years.
And, if all goes well, perhaps 50 employees will work at the Community Manufacturing Solutions shop three to five years from now. The two hope to one day expand the current building by an additional 30,000 square feet, with a total of about 50 state-of-the art sewing machines inside.
“We are in the process of putting in a full-blown manufacturing system which is going to be tracking all of our products, materials and purchasing,” Zalinsky said in a recent interview. “There will always be a need for manufacturing plants.”
By the end of 2019, between 18 and 25 employees are expected to be working at the plant, with 12 to 15 sewing machines installed. Employees can be trained to use them in a second-floor section of the two-story building.
In April, the facility became fully operational as a fabric-cutting plant.
In July 2017, CMS bought the former Armour Dynamics building from the Kingston Local Development Corporation, which owns the Kingston Business Park. The price tag for the building was $750,000.
A description of the company says it is “passively” owned by the Bruderhof, a Christian community. Six employees currently work at the plant.
At present, the Bruderhof Community is Community Manufacturing Solutions’ only client. It purchases cut fabric for Bruderhof-made products, including childrens’ toys, furniture and adaptive equipment for people with disabilities, among other items.
“Initially, CMS is providing cut fabric products for Community Playthings and Rifton Equipment, both owned by the Bruderhof,” the company description says.
The work had been done by out-of-state firms and within the Bruderhof internally, Fenwick said. That has now changed.
Said Zalinsky, “They (the Bruderhof) wanted to make a commitment to the local area.”
Community Manufacturing Solutions has invested more than $100,000 in renovations, including sit-down and stand-up, desks, Zalinsky said.
Fenwick said that, once the cut and sew product orders for Community Playthings and Rifton Equipment are fulfilled, additional “business and new customers will be welcome.”
When the Kingston Business Park opened in 1998, then-Mayor T.R. Gallo and his administration touted the 107-acre site as something of a saving grace for the city because it kept Huck International, which was looking to relocate from Smith Avenue, from leaving Kingston and taking 200 jobs with it. Huck later became Alcoa Fastening Systems.
But, since the Huck move, no company other than Armor Dynamics has located at the park.
Armor initially said it would employ 560 people at business park, but it never had more than about 25 on staff.