MUNCIE – The city of Muncie is putting its economic development tools to use to try to find a new owner for the former BorgWarner Automotive building.
The Muncie Redevelopment Commission on Monday expanded a southside tax increment financing (TIF) district to include the BorgWarner building along Kilgore Avenue and also declared its intention to help market the building to a new owner or occupant.
“My best case scenario would be re-purposing that building,” Mayor Dennis Tyler told The Star Press after the MRC meeting. “I believe it still can be re-purposed.”
The BorgWarner building has been for the most part empty since the auto parts maker shut down operations in 2009. William Marsteller, an Ohio businessman who bought the plant shortly after its closing, has tried to sell the building.
Working against the sale of the building — which is now priced at $2.2 million — is its sheer size:sAt a half-mile long and more than a million square feet, it is bigger than most modern manufacturing operations need.
During the MRC meeting, members agreed to expand the city’s southside TIF district to include the former Wilson Middle School — slated for likely sale to ASONS, a local construction and maintenance company looking for a new headquarters — and the former BorgWarner.
TIF districts allow governments to use new property taxes generated in an area to pay for infrastructure improvements that can attract development.
After the meeting, MRC director Todd Donati told The Star Press the MRC got involved after the latest effort to attract a buyer for the building failed.