WATERFORD — KBS Builders Inc.’s plant on Route 37  will reopen as soon as April, Plant Manager Matt Mosher said.

“We have every intention to open up the factory. We don’t have a date pinned down yet but we’re looking at sometime in April,” he said.

Established in 2001, the modular home company was formed as KBS Building Systems, offering a diverse line of quality housing, control and design-built commercial and industrial buildings. The main office and factory are in Paris.

In late 2007, KBS Building Systems purchased the former Waterford Homes property in Waterford from a Massachusetts firm. Waterford Homes, a two-year-old, high-end manufacturer, defaulted on mortgage and loan payments and closed in 2006.

The 17-acre property, with a 30,000-square-foot manufacturing plant, was reopened early the next year with some 20 new hires, boosting KBS’ production by as much as a third.

In April 2014, KBS Building Systems was purchased by a Minnesota-based manufacturer, Aetrium, from Robert Farnum in a deal reportedly worth $10.5 million.

Aetrium is part of the semiconductor industry.

The buyer retained the approximately 200 employees and changed the name to KBS Builders Inc.

The Waterford plant has traditionally closed in the winter and laid off from 20 to 60 or so employees or moved them to the Paris plant. Officials have said in previous years that the lack of commercial building work in Maine and overhead costs in the Waterford facility were the major reasons they shut the plant down each winter.

Mosher said the excess material that was being auctioned March 19 was “written off” the company books. It can’t be used on any of their construction, he said, because it is a mix and match of items.

ldixon@sunmediagroup.net