Clark County (The Evening News)
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Colgate Plant
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Colgate plant could be sold by year’s end
A deal is in the works that may have the former Colgate-Palmolive Co. plant sold by the end of the year.
A contract for the sale has been agreed to, pending an environmental investigation of the property, said Rick Dickman, Clarksville’s redevelopment director. If no problems are found, a sale could be closed on in the next three months.
Dickman would not disclose the name of the potential buyer or the price Colgate is asking for the property. He also didn’t say what plans for the property might be.
The plant closed in December, after the company announced a few years earlier that it was relocating jobs to Tennessee and Mexico.
Over the years, it had employed thousands — more than 1,500 during its height in the 1960s. There were fewer than 200 workers when it closed.
Since then, it’s been a backdrop for political speeches and a subject of redevelopment puzzlement for town officials.
The company asked about $13 million for the site originally, but an Internet search found the listing was now $9 million. It includes 942,000 square feet of industrial and office space and 60 acres of land. The property is zoned for industrial use, but plans are in the works to change it to planned-use development, Dickman said.
Similar zoning is in place along Veterans Parkway, where buildings have to use certain colors and be built in certain styles. At one point, that entire area was industrial, Dickman said.
Now that Colgate is gone, officials hope to see the kind of development that matches that of downtown Louisville and Jeffersonville — restaurants, retail and possibly condominiums.
“It’s a natural progression,” Dickman said.
Additionally, he believes, Clarksville offers a better view of the Louisville skyline than does Jeffersonville.
The complex is one rich in history. It began in the late 19th century as the Southern Indiana Reformatory. When the state closed the jail in the early 1920s, Colgate-Palmolive bought the site and began making soap, even before all the prisoners were relocated.
Clarksville Town Councilman Greg Isgrigg — who also serves on the town’s redevelopment commission — would like to preserve some of that history going forward.
However, he’d liked to see it developed into a “lifestyle center,” where in people could live, work and play.
“A city within a city,” he envisions.
Whatever the property becomes, Greg Sekula, director of the Southern Regional Office of the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, hopes developers preserve the integrity of the buildings.
“There are great examples locally of large-scale industrial adaptive reuses — one is right across the street at Water Tower Square. There’s also Quartermaster Station [in Jeffersonville],” Sekula said.
He said his office will encourage a new owner to apply for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, something Colgate-Palmolive had rebuffed, Sekula said.
He said such a designation wouldn’t put restrictions on a developer, but does make the historic buildings eligible for tax credits on 20 percent of costs of rehabbing a building — such as for windows, roofing or even a heating and cooling system. Sekula said numerous buildings on the site are considered historic, and listing the property on the historic register should only cost a few thousand dollars.
Isgrigg said the town will not know anything about plans until the sale is complete.
Prior to becoming a town councilman, Isgrigg worked at the plant for 30 years. He left around 2006, just after the closing announcement was made.
“Hopefully, something positive will come out of it,” he said.
In the last year, steps have been taken to move closer to that end.
The redevelopment commission recently agreed to spend $7,000 on a concept plan for the site. Additionally, the town council agreed to expand its tax-increment financing district by about 20 percent to include the site.
A TIF district enables a municipality to use taxes collected in the district to fund infrastructure improvements there or nearby.
Colgate-Palmolive plant
• WHERE: 1410 S. Clark Blvd.
• HISTORY: Opened in 1890, as the Southern Indiana Reformatory; Colgate opened in the early 1920s
• SQUARE FOOTAGE: 942,000
• LOT SIZE: 60 acres
• SPECIAL FEATURE: 40-foot diameter clock
• EMPLOYMENT: 1,500 at its height in the 1960s
• ASKING PRICE: $9 million, according to real estate Web site LoopNet; Colgate-Palmolive originally listed the price at $13 million
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