California-based company poised to redevelop O'Sullivan plant

Lamar, Mo. -- Lamar has cause to celebrate after several months of bad news following the closing of O'Sullivan Industries. A California company, Structured Equity Advisors of Newport Beach, Calif. has expressed interest in the property to convert part of it for a door manufacturing facility and part to house other tenants.

Lynn Calton, Lamar city administrator, said that the news brightened prospects for the city's merchants and laborers.

"Our unemployment has been over 10 percent," Calton said. "No one is buying cars or furniture and we have lots of empty houses. This will help our local economy. People will buy furniture and cars again. The housing industry has collapsed, there are empty houses all over town. All those businesses will be helped."

The project will be financed in part by a Tax Increment Financing Commission which was created by the Lamar City Council a month ago.

"A TIF commission works like this," Calton said. "The taxes an entity, like a school district, receives from an area covered by the TIF stay the same and any improvements that cause an increase, that additional money, in lieu of going to the normal tax receiving entity, goes into a separate account to pay for bonds that are sold for the upfront money to do the project. The bond holders will get paid back over time, year by year."

The company that will move into the renovated building, Polymer-Wood Technologies, doing business as Gorilla Door, will eventually create approximately 475 new jobs in the area. The renovation should be completed by the fall of 2008.

"It will take several months, there have to be a pretty heavy renovation of the building," Calton said. "The Gorilla Door folks, they've got this high dollar equipment to be brought in here. Whoever makes it, they've got to make it. A pure guess on my part, something like nine months. A pure guesstimate on my part. It will be sometime in the later part of next year people will be working."

In addition to the half million square feet the Gorilla Door operation will take up the additional space in the more than one million square foot building will be renovated and leased to other businesses.

"There's another half million square feet there," Calton said. "They're going to try to get somebody in, or it's big enough you could split it up five times. So hopefully we could get some additional companies in here besides Gorilla Door."

Calton had an idea for the perfect tenant for the additional space.

"Maybe a company that supplies Gorilla Door that would be a perfect location, for them to be right next door," Calton said. "We've got rail service, Burlington Northern and Santa Fe rail spurs, two of them in fact, running right into the building. It makes it good that all the utilities are there and ready to go."