MOORESVILLE — A shell building at the corner of State Road 67 and Merriman Road in Mooresville will remain empty for the time being after the company that was planning to purchase the property backed out of the deal.
During the April meeting of the Mooresville Redevelopment Commission, it was announced that Illinois-based firm Dawson Property Holdings, LLC, had planned to purchase the property and take ownership of the 75,000-square-foot building for nearly $5 million.
Dawson Logistics, which had planned to occupy the site, specializes in logistics for companies in the biopharmaceutical industry.
The company had planned to bring 25 jobs to Mooresville.
About half of those jobs would have paid between $65,000 and $100,000 per year.
Roughly one-quarter of the jobs would have paid more than $100,000 annually while the remaining positions were proposed to have paid between $35,000 and $65,000 per year.
Mooresville Redevelopment Commission Attorney Adam Steuerwald told commission members Monday that Dawson gave the "bad news" on Friday, June 10.
"Under the purchase agreement for the shell building, they had an inspection period, which is very standard for all commercial properties," Steuerwald said. "And then they had the right to terminate the purchase agreement anytime during that period. They have elected to terminate the purchase agreement for the shell building."
Steuerwald added that commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield will now need to find another buyer for the shell building.
According to Steuerwald, no reason was given as to why Dawson Logistics backed out of the deal.
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"They just cited that the the buyer has determined the property was not suitable for the buyer's purposes," Steuerwald said.
RDC chairman Dustin Stanley said there was some disappointment in the announcement.
Pauley Property history
The 100-acre parcel of land, formerly known as the Pauley Property, the shell building sits on was purchased by the RDC in late 2018 for $3 million.
The property that was being purchased by Dawsons Logistics took up about 10 of those acres.
Construction for the shell building started in 2020.
Work on the $4.1 mill structure was supposed to be complete by November 2020, but construction-related delays pushed the completion of the building back several times.
During the RDC's Jan. 8 meeting, financial consultant Chelsey Manns reported that the structure was nearly complete but some of the work would had to be delayed until warmer weather arrived.
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The Dawson Logistics announcement comes on the heels of another setback for development of the former Pauley Property, as the Reporter-Times reported in late 2021.
Nice-Pak, which has a manufacturing facility on Indianapolis Road in Mooresville, had been eyeing moving to a new location along Merriman Road for nearly two years.
In 2019, the company announced an $80 million expansion of its Mooresville operations into a 760,000-square-foot building.
About a year later in 2020, the company announced an even larger expansion by constructing a 987,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and a 309,000-square-foot distribution building.
Late last year, however, Nice-Pak chose to halt those expansion plans in Mooresville.
"With the unpredictable demand that has resulted from post-pandemic shifts, we wanted to ensure longevity of our business through investments aligned with market growth and want to take time to reconsider our previous growth plans through a strategic assessment," Senior Vice President for Global Integrated Operations for Nice-Pak John Dietrich said in a statement to the Reporter-Times in November 2021. "Therefore, we decided to release the parcel of land under agreement back to the town."
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Nice-Pak would, instead, remain at its current location and Mooresville would continue to be a key component for the company's manufacturing footprint.
The next scheduled meeting of the Mooresville Redevelopment Commission is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 7, at the Mooresville Government Center, 4 E. Harrison St.