News and Tribune

Homepage

Related Photos

  • TThe famous clock on the then Colgate-Palmolive Co. plant in Clarksville is pictured in this file photo. An unknown group has purchased the sprawling property and two area doctors are trying to help secure foreign investment there. File photo File photo

    12-19 Colgate clock.jpg

Discussion

Add a comment on this story
December 18, 2010

OUT-OF-COUNTRY EXPERIENCE: Local group seeking foreign investment for former Colgate property

Purchaser of the site remains unknown

By BRADEN LAMMERS Braden.Lammers@newsandtribune.com

CLARKSVILLE — A closing on the purchase of the former Colgate-Palmolive Co. plant in Clarksville is expected to occur before the end of the year.

The date, which Clarksville Redevelopment Director Rick Dickman called “imminent,” may help shed some light on what will come of the 60-acre site that was sold at an auction in November. The plant was sold for $4.5 million and the buyer purchased all 10 parcels of the property, including the historic buildings and the famed giant red clock as a package.

What was going to become of the property has been in question since the factory closed its doors permanently at the end of 2007 and moved operations to Mexico and Tennessee.

Although New York-based trading firm Active International purchased the building in 2009 with the intent to sell it to a developer, no deal was ever reached, and because of little interest, the property went up for auction in early November.

The purchaser of the property has not been identified, but what has become apparent is that a group known as the Midwest Center for Foreign Investment is seeking to finance the Clark’s Landing development project.

“We are facilitating helping developers find funds ... and Clark’s Landing is a project of ours,” said Katherine Johnson, chief operating officer of Midwest Center for Foreign Investment.

Principles in the Midwest Center are New Albany Dr. Jayesh Sheth and Elizabethtown, Ky., Dr. Robert Robbins, according to biographies on the group’s website.

Included in Robbins’ biography is that he was an owner and developer of the Jefferson Plaza Shopping Center — a 12-acre site — and a managing partner of Sunnyside Land Co., a proposed commercial and medical park development in eastern Jeffersonville.

When reached by telephone recently, Sheth confirmed that the group has met with the purchaser, but would not disclose who the purchaser was.

He only said, “it’s a group of people.”

Dickman confirmed the same information, but also would not disclose the buyer.

He did say that Robbins and Sheth have been in discussions with the town about development and are seeking investors through a foreign investor program.

“We have had conversations with Dr. Sheth and Dr. Robbins for over two years,” Dickman said regarding the development of the site. “They are going to try to identify a number of potential investors who want to immigrate to the United States. They are confident this is going to move forward.”

The program — known as the EB5 program — allows for foreign investors to pledge $500,000 for a qualified project with a designated target area. The amount increases to $1 million if the project does not have a designated investment area in exchange for green cards for themselves and their families for two years.

The families do not have to live in the area of investment, but the pledge must result in the creation of at least 10 jobs for Americans for a minimum of two years.

The group seeking investors will look at how many jobs the project will create and then based around that figure the group could create a financing plan, Sheth said.

Possible development plans have included retaining as much as 30 acres of green space while creating a mixed-use development which would include possible housing options, Johnson said. The plan being discussed falls in line with what Clarksville was hoping to develop at the former site of a mixed-use space of businesses and residences on 174 acres.

“We are highly gratified that the property was sold as one unit rather than piecemealed,” Dickman said. “For anyone to buy the property as a unit leads me to believe they are going to develop it as a unit. The real question for the 174-acre Colgate property is where do you start?”

But Dickman added that for every question that has been answered regarding the development of the site one remains.

One of those unknowns, the buyer, should be identified before the end of the year.

“The owner hasn’t even closed yet,” Johnson said. “Closing is supposed to take place this month.”

Additionally, county property records, which are generally updated about 30 days after a real estate closing, have not identified the purchaser.

Johnson said the group is expecting to raise $100 million for the first phase of the project, which could grow up to $500 million in investments.

Text Only | Photo Reprints
05-14 Prosser1.w.jpg

Ryan Stonecipher, a junior from Corydon Central High School, makes a jack screw on a metal lathe at the Prosser Career Education Center. The school has changed its name from the Prosser School of Technology to better reflect its mission.

LATEST NEWS POSTS

SOUTHERN INDIANA SPORTS

LOCAL OPINIONS

LOCAL FEATURES