By LARRY THOMAS
The Colgate-Palmolive Co. property in Clarksville is among 10 historic sites considered among Indiana’s most endangered again this year.
The Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, a private preservation group, released its listing of the 10 most endangered properties for 2007 on Monday. The Colgate site was added to the list last year after company officials announced in 2005 the facility would be shut down by the end of this year.
The 60-acre Colgate complex is for sale and is listed for $13.3 million with a commercial real estate broker. Greg Sekula, director of Historic Landmarks’ Southern Regional Office, said the uncertainty of the site after Colgate’s departure is what qualifies it for the list.
“Until that fate is known, we will keep it on the list,” Sekula said.
From 1847 to 1897, what is now the Colgate site was the Indiana State Prison South. Colgate bought the property in 1921 and production began there three years later.
Nearly 500 people were employed at the plant when Colgate announced it would close.
Local officials have been frustrated by company’s refusal to provide information relating to the facility’s future.
Sekula said Colgate officials declined an opportunity to list the plant on the National Register of Historic Places, a nomination that would have been funded by the Indiana Department of Transportation as part of the Ohio River Bridges project.
Sekula said that, ideally, the Colgate site would become “either another manufacturing use or an adapted reuse, similar to what happened at Water Tower Square (across the street from Colgate) or at Quartermaster (Station, where Jeffersonville City Hall opened last year).”
