Locals purchase former Thomasville plant
By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, July 26, 2004
Winston-Salem, N.C. — Two local businessmen have purchased a former Thomasville Furniture Inds. case goods plant that closed here last fall.
Bill Beam, president of office furnishings supplier Surplus Unlimited, and business partner Buel Barker bought the North Patterson Avenue property from Thomasville parent Furniture Brands International on May 13.
The 700,000-square-foot manufacturing and warehouse complex and surrounding 25 acres was on the market for $1.5 million and sold for $850,000.
Surplus Unlimited will lease about 50,000 square feet for storage. Barker is expected to use a similar size portion of the building, Beam said.
Thomasville also has signed a three-year lease for about 200,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution space across the street from the old plant, said Paul Dascoli, the manufacturer's executive vice president. The company had previously used that same space, which is part of the overall manufacturing complex, for the same purpose.
Thomasville will continue to use the area to warehouse and ship case goods, but also use a portion for its quick-ship upholstery program.
"We needed the space," Dascoli said. "We knew we could do without the production, but knew we couldn't do without the space to store and ship product."
Real estate sources familiar with the complex don't foresee that the building will ever be used again for manufacturing. Some parts of the structure date back to the 1920s, and have several floors and low ceilings not conducive to streamlined production.
"Most of it is a dated manufacturing complex to say the least, but a portion of it would work from a warehouse or distribution standpoint," said Richard Redding, a commercial broker who represented the buyers.
Randy Stump, a broker who represented FBI, lamented that it would not likely be used again to make furniture. "It has got to be some kind of adaptive reuse," he said.
But Beam said the building's remaining 400,000 square feet of space is suitable for office, manufacturing and other entrepreneurial activities that tie in with the growth of a nearby research park. Three small businesses have already signed leases for 4,000 square feet of space each, he said.
