While looking to open a 1 million-sq.-ft. distribution facility somewhere in Georgia, the company is preparing to close a Rapid Deployment Center (RDC) in Braselton.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported the Braselton center -- the first of the company’s nationwide network of 19 distribution centers -- will close by the end of the year. The Braselton center was not mechanized. 

Nucor Corp. will close its Nuconsteel division and no longer fabricate light gauge steel framing used in residential and commercial structures, the company has announced. Nuconsteel has operations in Denton, Texas, and Dallas, Ga.

Nucor entered the light gauge steel framing business in November 2001 with the acquisition of Itec Steel, which became Nuconsteel shortly thereafter. Nucor expects to close Nuconsteel's facilities in the spring of 2012, after meeting current customer contractual obligations.

The city of Glendale, Calif., has began enforcing a prohibition on synthetic turf for front lawns, according to an article in the Glendale News Press. 

The Glendale ban has been in place for three months, according to the article, but code enforcement officers have recently issued six violation notices to property owners who refused to remove the artificial turf from their front yards. Faux grass in the backyard is permitted, however.

Home Depot will open a new customer support call center in Kennesaw, Ga., not far from its Atlanta headquarters, in 2012. 

The story first appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and was confirmed by a Home Depot spokesman yesterday. 

The customer support center will start out with 400 employees and grow to about 700 employees by 2015. It will be located in the Chastain Meadows commercial park.

Dalton, Ga.-based SYNLawn has begun selling its brand of residential synthetic grass at 463 Lowe's stores.

The new program is a continuation of a trial offering conducted in Lowe’s stores in five states earlier this year.  SYNLawn will provide rolls of synthetic turf in the most popular sizes, along with basic installation tools for Lowe’s customers who need smaller amounts of turf and want to install it themselves.

The Molpus Woodlands Group, a timberland investment management organization, has purchased 26,500 acres in Georgia and Virginia on behalf of its clients. The timberland, located in Liberty and Long counties in Georgia, and Greensville, Sussex and Southampton counties in Virginia, consists mainly of southern pine timberland. Molpus currently manages an additional 22,000 acres in Georgia and Virginia.

Across the country, and across a broad spectrum of industries, advertisements sporting mobile bar codes are becoming an increasingly familiar sight. QR codes — quick response codes — are the most common of a few types of bar codes that consumers can scan using a pre-downloaded smartphone app. The bar codes may appear on anything from posters to packaging to catalogs and, when scanned, lead consumers to a specific set of information, often through a mobile website.

According to an article in the Florida Times-Union, thieves stole 40 handguns from a Blackshear, Ga., hardware store.

Police made three arrests after the incident, which occurred last week at the Blackshear Do it Best store on Highway 84, the paper reported. 

After reports of numerous burn injuries, Duluth, Ga.-based Napa Home and Garden issued a "precautionary hold" on sales of its gel burners and gel fuels. 

According to the company, the decorative firepots made by Napa and other suppliers are sold in most major mass market retailers and thousands of independent stores.

Continuing the alphabetical, coast-to-coast rundown of all-star hardware stores, here are three standouts from Massachusetts, Michigan and Minnesota.

While most people think of water, food and shelter when it comes to emergency relief efforts, Leviton provided areas of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee with another essential product in the aftermath of recent storms and tornados: watertight locking plugs and connectors, 50 amp generator plus, and a wide assortment of other temporary power supplies.