Professional Builders Supply has completed the purchase of the U.S. 421 property where the company moved its Wilmington operations in 2016.

The firm bought the 10-acre property at 3941 U.S. 421, including a 50,000-square-foot facility built by McKinley Building Corp., in a $5.5 million transaction, according to the deed. The previous owner was Seamist Properties LLC.

"It's a great location especially since the last leg of I-140 opened," said Van Isley, Professional Builders Supply CEO, referring to the Wilmington bypass that opened in December and connects U.S. 17 in Brunswick and New Hanover counties. "We do quite a bit of business down in Brunswick County, so it shaved 10 to 15 minutes off that run, which is big. It's all about efficiency."

The bypass has been hailed as a key piece of transportation infrastructure for the region's economic development efforts. In January, officials approved a nearly $12.8 million construction contract for the planned U.S. 421 water and sewer utility project that is expected to make the industrial corridor more attractive to potential employers.

Professional Builders Supply, founded in Raleigh in 2003, opened a Wilmington location in 2009. The firm sells building supplies mainly to single-family homebuilders with some multifamily customers, Isley said in a previous Greater Wilmington Business Journal story.

Purchasing the U.S. 421 property was part of the plan when the company moved from Military Cutoff Road in Wilmington into the new facility in November 2016, Isley said. The company had at least 30 employees in its Wilmington branch at that time and has been able to add about a dozen employees to its roster since the move, he said. 

Isley said he hopes the construction boom of recent years, which has been particularly evident in Brunswick County, will continue.

"There are definitely some challenges, in that pricing across the board continues to increase whether it be labor or materials or land prices and the combination of all that with some additional bumps in the interest rate could be cause for concern," Isley said Tuesday. "Obviously the stock market doing what it did yesterday could have some impact on Northeasterners relocating to Brunswick County, so we just kind of have to wait and see."