Birmingham-based Consolidated Pipe & Supply Company, Inc. will invest $28.7 million to build a new corporate headquarters on Lakeshore Parkway and create at least 40 new full-time jobs.

Consolidate Pipe officials said the company has outgrown its current home office on the campus of Birmingham-Southern College. The Jefferson County Commission has approved economic incentives of up to $290,000, with the relocation expected to be complete by Dec. 31, 2028.

The average annual salary for the new jobs will be about $58,000, according to Consolidated Pipe, which will combine its distribution and warehousing operations and management for the sale of pipes, fittings and valves, as well as expand its pipe-coating function and facilities at the Lakeshore location and one at Avenue V in Birmingham’s Ensley neighborhood.

“Consolidated Pipe has a long history in Jefferson County, dating back to 1960,” said Jeff Traywick, economic development advisor for the Jefferson County Commission. “With several operations in Birmingham and Bessemer, they make a significant contribution to our local economy.”

“Ensuring that their corporate operations stay here and that they have the ability to also grow their Ensley operation will ensure that they continue their presence in the area for many years to come,” said.

Jefferson County Commissioner Mike Bolin, chairman of the panel’s economic development committee, said, “Providing businesses and industry, like Consolidated Pipe, both the ability and the inclination to always remain in Jefferson County is government at its best … successful economic development plans ultimately provide good paychecks to both its new and existing employees. It just does not get any better than that.”

Tom Brinkley, attorney with Maynard Nexsen, and Barry Howton of Consolidated Pipe & Supply with a rendering of the new company headquarters. (Barnett Wright / The Birmingham Times)

Consolidated Pipe has operated a coating facility and warehouse in Ensley since July 1960, one of its 70 locations across the country. It manufactures pipe for use in water, sewer and gas lines. It’s owned by the Kerr family, which is in its third generation of ownership, Consolidated Pipe CEO Barry Howton said.

The Birmingham City Council in September approved rezoning for a light manufacturing district for 28 acres located at 705 Tom Martin Drive and 801 Lakeshore Parkway. The new Consolidated Pipe headquarters would include a corporate office, sales office and distribution center.

Howton told the Birmingham City Council that there would be some storage of mostly PVC and polyethylene pipe on the 14 developed acres of the new campus. The remainder of the property will remain wooded to provide a buffer from nearby neighborhoods.

Traywick said the county’s incentives, combined with support from Birmingham and the state, are offsetting the costs of site development, “which is significant due to topography and the need to extend sewer service to the site.”

Howton said the BSC campus office was intended for 60 employees but now houses 100. Once the new headquarters is built, there will be room to add another 20 new positions, he said.

Consolidated Pipe & Supply is building a new headquarters, adding jobs. (Greg Garrison)

Howton told the City Council that the company has already donated its current headquarters building, valued at $2.5 million, to BSC and since January 2023 has been paying rent to the college.

Over the life of the project, even with incentives in place, the county expects the project to generate more than $2.1 million in tax revenue, of which $945,990 will go to county schools, Traywick said.

“To put this into perspective, that would equal about 13,500 new textbooks or about 19 new teachers, and this doesn’t even include the new revenues to the city and state,” he said.

A version of this story originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.