NewLife’s $80 Million Arizona Sawmill Kicks Off Production

NewLife Forest Restoration with its operating entity, NewLife Forest Products, celebrated the opening of their new 425,000-square-foot sawmill and remanufacturing facility in Bellemont Arizona, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by the city officials and state representatives.

The high-production sawmill, which sits on 35 acres and represents an $80 million capital investment in the area, is intended to produce lumber, engineered wood products, biomass, and residuals.

When fully operational, it will produce up to 120 million bd. ft. of lumber and engineered wood products per year, significantly increasing the regional log processing capacity required to restore the health of 2.4 million acres of Arizona forestland.

NewLife Forest Products manages the U.S. Forest Service’s Phase 1 Four Forest Restoration Initiative contract, which aims to restore the health of the state’s forests, reduce wildfires, and revitalize local communities.

NewLife Forest CEO Ted Dergousoff in a statement, “This is the most exciting and important project I have been involved with in my 40-year career in the forest products industry.”

The Bellemont sawmill will have multiple processing lines capable of handling any size logs and producing a wide range of products ranging from solid lumber to engineered wood products and bagged residuals.

The sawmill, planer mill, kilns, and EWP lines are among the operations. It will also enable NewLife to process smaller fiber profitably and scale up to 30,000 acres of forest thinning and harvesting per year.

“This magnificent 425,000-square-foot sawmill facility allows us to spring forward in our scale as a company and as a vital local industry. This will allow us to work with our partners to effectively thin the forests while producing world-class lumber products.”, Dergousoff continued.