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Wake Forest developer Jim Adams finally
got what he has been seeking for two
years. On June 1 his company, St. Ives
220 Commercial LLC, purchased the 30.5
acres and the dilapidated building that
had housed the Parker-Hannifin plant for
$2.9 million.
Adams was not available this
week, but a spokesman said the company
is still drawing up plans for the land
and may be able to announce them in
about 60 days. Adams has said he plans
an upscale shopping center. It will be
just north of the Shoppes of Caveness
Farm, a shopping center under
construction by Hughes Baran Partners of
Raleigh.
When Adams went to the Wake
Forest Town Board early in April to ask
for its help with the sale, he said he
planned to spend $600,000 to demolish
the building. “It cannot be salvaged.”
Parker-Hannifin closed the plant in
2002, and it has been for sale since
then.
The town board passed a
resolution later in April, saying the
town does not have an interest in the
property.
It has been owned by the
Industrial Development Corporation since
1964, when the town established the
independent corporation to issue bonds,
purchase the former Jenkins land, build
the hydraulic-systems manufacturing
plant and lease it to Schrader Brothers.
It was the first industry in town.
Schrader and all its successors paid all
the costs, including taxes. The bonds
were paid off in 1984, and the IDC
offered the deed to the town. It was
refused because the town commissioners
preferred to get the property taxes --
$23,401.67 in 2005 – rather than the
$1,000-per-month rent. Parker-Hannifin
inherited the 40-year lease agreement
when it purchased Scovill in 1985.
Some of the problems Adams
encountered in his purchase involved the
pollution on the site. During the 1960s
and 1970s, Schrader-Bellows dumped
trichloroethylene (TCE), a solvent used
to clean the machines. Parker-Hannifin
has been spending $150,000 or more every
year since 1991 to clean the TCE from
the groundwater using a water
remediation system. The TCE has migrated
off the plant property, and toward
Adams’ St. Ive’s subdivision to the
north and two subdivisions to the west.
One of the parts of the sale
was a brown fields agreement with the
State of North Carolina under which
Parker-Hannifin has posted an
$11-million bond to assure it will clean
up the TCE.
Adams will donate some of
the land to the Wake Forest Fire
Department for its third fire station.
(See the April 5, 2006 issue
of The Gazette for more details and
Adams’ request to the town board. That
article also includes more details about
the Shoppes of Caveness Farm.) |
