At a glance
Who's who in the former Arvin site, now the Hurricane Industrial Complex:
Franklin Power Products
What is it? Warehouse space
Size: 100,000 square feet
Employees: People who work at other sites visit the space as needed.
KYB America
What is it? Warehouse also used for receiving material and sending out finished product
Size: 180,000 square feet
Employees: 44
Theysohn Vinyl Extrusions Technologies
What is it? Sales distributions and warehouse center.
Size: 30,000 square feet
Employees: 8
Celadon Dedicated Services
What is it? Logistics operations; its parent company is trucking company Celadon Group
Size: 150,000 square feet
Employees: 15
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Climate Control
What is it? Warehouse space
Size: 32,000 square feet
Employees: People who work at other sites visit the space as needed.
By CANDACE BEATY, Daily Journal of Johnson County staff writer
Two years after a major employer closed its doors, the building that once housed ArvinMeritor is nearly full again.
Only this time it's filled with stored products, and a fraction of the employees it once had.
Five businesses lease space in the building now called Hurricane Industrial Complex, located at 1001 Hurricane St.
The 539,308-square-foot building is about 90 percent full, real estate agent Ryan Beesley said. Beesley works for real estate firm CB Richard Ellis to lease space in the building.
The building was sold to a private investor in June 2005. KDL Investments then worked with the real estate firm to break up the large space into smaller industrial sites.
"It's a really good example of taking something that could have been a real eyesore or dinosaur building … and making it functional again," Johnson County Development Corp. executive director Cheryl Morphew said.
As manufacturing methods become more high-tech, older industrial buildings require extensive updates before a new business can move in, said Weston Sedgwick, spokesman for the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
Some large industrial buildings sit empty for years while companies opt to start from scratch instead of moving into existing buildings, he said. But that isn't the case with the ArvinMeritor building.
"That's phenomenal that something like that can happen in such a short period of time," he said.
Beesley said it took a lot of work to transform the building into workable leasing spaces. The owner's willingness to make the changes and aggressively market the space made it easier, he said.
"We've been pretty lucky," Morphew said.
The space is being used, but the number of employees in the building falls short compared to Arvin days.
ArvinMeritor employed more than 800 people before closing in fall 2004. Now 67 people work there. Most of the building is used as warehouse space.
Three of the occupants are Franklin companies using the space as off-site storage: KYB Manufacturing, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Climate Control and Franklin Power Products.
KYB occupies the largest portion of the building with 180,000-square-feet. The company moved its warehouse space to the Hurricane building from Greenwood because it is closer to KYB's Franklin manufacturing site, president David Billingsley said.
When the company expands its own facility, the warehouse space will be consolidated at its U.S. 31 location, he said.
While the Hurricane building is almost full, the change in format results in about $324,000 less property tax for local governments.
In 2003, ArvinMeritor paid about $427,200 in taxes on the property, building and land.
The 2005 bill came to about $102,800, according to tax records.
Now that the building is filling with tenants, Franklin Township assessor David Harrison expects the tax bill to go up, but it won't reach the $400,000 mark.
"The value of a warehouse is less than it would be as a manufacturing plant," he said.
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