VALPARAISO | A factory that stirred controversy when it closed in 2004 is for sale.
The vacant former Magnequench facilities at 405 Elm St. are listed for $2.3 million by Indiana Location Realtors, Realtor Gene Eldridge said.
Magnequench Inc. had produced magnets in two buildings at the site, including a 118,000-square-foot older building and a newer 42,000-square-foot building, where rare-earth magnets used in U.S. Defense Department smart bombs were made.
The buildings are being marketed separately, with the older building listed at $798,000 and the newer one at $1,529,000, Eldridge said.
The building where rare-earth magnets were built is equipped with temperature and humidity controls, Eldridge said.
The decision by Magnequench to close the plant and move the magnet making operation to China upset local officials for both the loss of 225 U.S. jobs and the move overseas of rare-earth magnet production.
The facilities are owned by the French firm Carbone Lorraine, which owns Magnequench, Eldridge said.
Pennsylvania-based magnet maker Kane Magnetics LLC had operated out of part of the 118,000-square-foot building for about a year and a half before moving out in November 2006, Eldridge said.
Kane Magnetics, which in 2005 merged with Energy Conversion Systems LLC, had manufactured just one product line in the Valparaiso plant, "with fundamentally one customer," Energy Conversion Systems spokesman Patrick Reagan said.
Magnequench purchased the former Ugimag plant on Elm Street in 2000.
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