Charleston
Daily Mail, WV
George Hohmann, Daily Mail Business
Editor
9/4/2002_________________________________________________________
FMC Corp. has put 11 acres next to its Spring Hill hydrogen peroxide plant up for sale.
A “for sale” sign, visible from Interstate 64, has been erected on the property. The land is bordered by the interstate, a truck parking area, a fly ash pond and the hydrogen peroxide plant.
Bill Currey of Currey Realty is handling the listing for FMC. He said the sale price is $70,000 an acre.
The land was last used as a coal storage area for FMC’s steam plant, he said.
“It’s a pretty important piece of property because of the lack of purely industrial property” in South Charleston, Currey said. “There are no residences around it. This has a rail siding, an interstate exit, and a nearby river dock – all of the industrial elements you look for. It could be used for a trans-loading facility with containerized goods brought in by rail and transferred to truck or barge. You could put a large truck terminal in there. There are all kinds of uses for it.”
Bill Granville, FMC’s manager of community relations and state affairs, confirmed that the land is for sale.
“We have much more of a focused effort in our real estate group over the past several months to look for opportunities for underutilized properties at a lot of our facilities around the country,” Granville said. “This is one more opportunity that the company is trying to look for to generate cash.”
FMC has put several lots up for sale on the Kanawha River side of MacCorkle Avenue over the past several years.
That land eventually became available after FMC demolished its East Plant. Some of the East Plant property has been cleaned up and sold; some is now for sale; and some is awaiting cleanup.
Granville said that while much of the former East Plant property had to be cleaned up before it could be reused, to his knowledge the Spring Hill property does not require any environmental remediation. That means it is ready to be sold and redeveloped.
Stephen Weir, executive director of the South Charleston Area Development Corp., said the Kanawha Valley Local Port Authority is interested in FMC’s 11 acres.
“One thing we’re looking at is that property and the future use of the fly ash pond – whether FMC needs all of the fly ash pond in the future,” Weir said. “If there’s an opportunity to marry that 11 acres with part of the fly ash pond that could be re-used, we would be interested, especially for containerized staging.
“We have been looking at that 11 acres for some time,” Weir said. “They (FMC) have talked to us about it. We’re taking it up. But there’s no decision at this time.”
Weir was instrumental in the creation of the Kanawha Valley Local Port District last year. The district was created so South Charleston and the region could explore transportation-related opportunities.
The district extends along the Kanawha River from Nitro to Montgomery and out 20 miles from each side of the river.
Writer George Hohmann can be reached at 348-4836 or by e-mail at business@dailymail.com