New owners of former Mill's Pride cabinetry factory in Waverly, Ohio, plan to begin lumber operation after buying site in December from Michigan-based Masco for US$5M

Wendy Lisney

Wendy Lisney

COLUMBUS, Ohio , December 29, 2013 () – A southern Ohio cabinetry factory that closed nearly two years ago, throwing about 1,200 out of work, is poised for a new life under owners who specialize in putting discarded industrial plants to fresh use.

Elected leaders in Pike County, where November's 11.9 percent jobless rate remains the highest in Ohio, are excited about the new owners' plans to refill the factory with a variety of businesses and new jobs.

Real-estate development partners Christopher Semarjian, who runs Industrial Commerce Ltd., in Macedonia near Cleveland, and Stuart Lichter, who heads Industrial Realty Group, in Downey near Los Angeles, and a third partner bought the former Mill's Pride plant in Waverly from Michigan-based Masco Corp. for $5 million this month, Lichter said.

The third partner, Everett Hannah, plans to begin a lumber operation at the Waverly plant in about six weeks that immediately would employ up to 28 workers and then expand, said spokesman David Bailey. Hannah is owner and president of Gilco International Lumber, a company with headquarters in Varney, W.Va., that exports lumber to furniture and flooring manufacturers in Europe and Asia.

Gilco also is negotiating with a Chinese furniture manufacturer to make its products in the Waverly plant, Bailey said.

Lichter said that he couldn't predict how many companies would lease or buy space at the large industrial property or how many jobs they would bring. But based on his experience in adapting other idled factory buildings for reuse, the Waverly project should be successful, he said.

He pointed to the vacant Hoover Co. campus in North Canton that he and Semarjian bought in 2008.

Since then, they have brought in a half-dozen companies that include makers of heaters, vacuums and electrical equipment, a drug company and office tenants, and the total space is probably about 50 percent occupied, Lichter said. They also plan to renovate some of the older buildings into loft apartments, he said.

The longtime partners also have bought other industrial properties around Ohio, including the Ford Motor Co. van assembly plant in Lorain, and the Lockheed Martin Corp. complex and the Goodyear corporate campus, both in Akron.

Pike County Auditor Ted Wheeler said the Waverly plant was valued at $25 million last year but was revalued at $5 million last month after Masco told the county Board of Revision that the property sold for that amount.

The Appalachian county of about 28,600 people has been reeling since the factory closed in early 2011.The 57-acre plant, composed of 11 metal-sided buildings, employed more than 3,000 in the 1990s, said Waverly Mayor Greg Kempton. He was a manager there for nearly 20 years.

Even when the number dwindled to 1,200, it remained Pike County's largest employer. Workers manufactured ready-to-assemble cabinetry sold at home-improvement stores and other retailers.

Kempton said he is excited about the rebirth of the factory and what it could mean for his community, and he likes the developers' plans to lease or sell factory space to different businesses.

"If they fill it, we will have diversification there," Kempton said. "It should be more steady, more evened-out, as far as employment."The job loss from the plant's closure was "devastating" to Waverly's tax base, Kempton said. It meant there was less money generated from the city's 1 percent income tax. That meant fewer services in the community, which has an annual operating budget of $2 million, he said.

While it is impossible to estimate how many jobs the reused factory could bring, "this gives us some momentum," Kempton said.

mlane@dispatch.com

@MaryBethLane1

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(c)2012 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio)

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