Justin Helfrich, Madison Courier Staff Writer
Less than a month after the announcement of Tower Manufacturing's closing, the downtown Madison factory will have a new purpose.
The building on West Second Street will be renovated for a new business venture while staying true to its manufacturing roots.
Tower Manufacturing owner Bob Cooke and River Mill Preservation Co., represented by David Landau, announced the pending sale of the building Friday.
River Mill Preservation Co. is the company that is rehabilitating the former Meese property on Vaughn Drive at St. Michael's Avenue. Both the Meese building and the Tower Manufacturing building were built by the same builder in 1884. This will be the first time both of the buildings will be owned by the same company since they were built.
River Mill Preservation Co. will convert Tower's 60,000 square feet into a flooring and furniture factory, focusing on reclaiming old-growth lumber. Much of the flooring will be used in the former Meese building, which requires 250,000 square feet for its current reconfiguration from a 90,000-square-foot former cotton mill into condos, shops and meeting rooms.
River Mill hopes the new factory will be operational by the fall of 2008. Landau said it will initially employ 25 and might eventually have as many as 100. River Mill Preservation will initially invest $1.5 million for machinery and will produce 1.5 million board feet per year, Landau said.
Both parties hope the deal will be closed before the end of the year.
Other buildings on the former Tower property will be used for an artist's co-op with facilities for pottery and glassblowing.
Landau said River Mill Preservation Co. picked Madison because of its being a National Historic Landmark. Another factor was Tower's M-2 zoning classification, the highest level of manufacturing under Madison's zoning ordinance. This filled an essential requirement for the glassblowing operation and kilns, Landau said.
"There was a need," Landau said. "It fits. It totally makes sense with what we're doing (at the former Meese building)."
Landau said River Mill Preservation Co. plans to start the River Mill Institute at Tower, which will offer art classes at the center of the property. It will also focus on training the local work force. Landau said the trained work force that these jobs will create will be advantageous to Madison's historical renovation economy.
All of the art made there will be hand-manufactured, and the co-op will draw international artists as well as those from the community, Landau said.
"To keep manufacturing in this district will have an international appeal," Landau said.
Eventually, the artists will be selling their creations to the public.
"This building is spectacular, and the community doesn't really know that," Landau said. "It wasn't open to the public."
Landau said the flooring and furniture factory will be looking for members of the local community with woodworking skills. In addition, to educate artisans, River Mill has acquired a training grant from the city, funded by the state.
"None of this would've happened without this administration and this mayor," Landau said. "He took an up-front involvement. The city has been phenomenal."
Cooke has been involved with Tower Manufacturing since 1974. He knew there were a myriad of possible new uses for the Tower building, but he didn't figure manufacturing was likely to be among them. He said that the transfer of the Tower Manufacturing building to its traditional capacity pleased him and his wife, Barb, greatly.
"I've spent more than half of my life at Tower, and besides my family and this city, nothing is more cherished by me," Cooke said.
An auction of Tower's equipment will be held Dec. 1, Cooke said.