Twelve years after he took to heart the message “Be Creative” on the billboard announcing the former Athey plant on South Main Street was for sale, Jeff Ammons has sold his creation inside the old plant, The Factory, for $17, 850,000. The new owner is The Macsyddey Company, a New York investment group.
Ammons said he sold The Factory because he had been approached by an investment group that owns “lots of large real estate. I just decided it is a good time. I love the developing part, the creative part, but now that is over 10 years old it is a good time to sell, a very good time so I can go back to doing what I enjoy.” What he enjoys is running a company called Live Green which shows builders of new homes and owners of old homes how to seal and handle air to keep out cold drafts and mold. See www.livegreeninc.com.
Ammons, a younger brother of Heritage developer Andy Ammons, purchased the empty street sweeper factory for $4.4 million in the fall of 2003 and began work on the renovation. It was a very hands-on project for him. In September 2004, the Gazette reported, “Jeff Ammons is hard at work, overseeing his own employees and an army of subcontractors who are working to change the old Athey streetsweeper factory into a playground for children and adults. ’I kissed my wife about three months ago and told her I’d see her in November,’ he said.
It has grown to be one of the sports centers in the area and is at 100 percent occupancy including the two full-size indoor skating rinks leased to Polar Ice House, the Wake Forest YMCA, MVP Sports Factory, Destiny Dance Institute, The Tumble Gym and, most recently, Virgilio’s olive oil and vinegar store.
Outside, Ammons, after a suggestion from Mayor Vivian Jones, sought and received a county grant of $1.5 million to build a youth baseball complex behind the factory. The six ball fields – four Little League fields and two regulation sized high school fields – are leased to Capital City Baseball, which operates the fields and the youth tournaments. Ammons said the new owner is committed to continuing that lease and maintaining the fields under an agreement with the county.
He said he had mixed emotions about selling, but now that it is full and 10 years old, “they are expert managers and it’s probably a good thing for both of us.”
Wake Forest lost its industry in a short time
Wake Forest was once a factory town. After Wake Forest College left in 1956, town leaders began scouting for industry and in 1964 the first industry, Schrader Brothers, opened its plant on Wake Union Church Road. A mill outside town, Burlington Mills Wake Plant on what was then called U.S. 1 opened a bit earlier. Athey began in town in 1965, building street sweepers and large equipment for the earth-moving industry. In early 1970 Weavexx began operations on land near U.S. 1 that is now a car dealership.
The industrial era ended almost as suddenly as it began. Burlington Mills closed its operations here in 1996; Athey closed in 2001; Parker-Hannifin, the successor to Schrader, closed in 2002; and Weavexx ended operations in 2003.
Here is a short history of Athey, which in 1995 had 310 employees and $40 million in sales. It was published in the Gazette in 2010.
That, 1995, was a high point. Between 1995 and 2000, the company went through difficult times and kept reducing the number of employees. Finally, on Dec. 1, 2000, most of the work force, 125 people, were suddenly laid off, leaving only 32 people on the payroll. Although a few people were called back, Athey closed its doors in June of 2001 and declared bankruptcy.
The winning bidder for Athey Products was Five Star, which paid $12.301 million for the company where most of its management had once worked. Five Star, which is in Youngsville, had been formed in 1996 by several former Athey employees. The company was later purchased by Federal Signal Environmental Product Group, a company which owns Elgin Sweeper, another Athey competitor.
Wake Forest developer Jim Adams and his partner, Jim Goldston, purchased the building and 38 acres early in 2001. They named it the 1839 Grandmark Center and planned to build a commercial park there. Last year Adams would not say what they had paid.
In 1999, before Wake County revaluated its property and before Athey went bust, the plant and land were listed as number three among the top 50 taxpayers in Wake Forest. KF-US1 LLC, the corporation which owns Caveness Farms apartments, and Weavexx were number one and two. Athey was listed as having an assessed value of $6.8 million.
By 2002, the land and plant now owned by 1839 Development LLC had dropped to number 25 and had an assessed value of $3.6 million. The plant had been stripped of all equipment by then.
As a sidelight, Heritage Wake Forest had the highest assessed property value in town at $17.5 million in 2002. Weavexx, which will end its Wake Forest operations this fall, was number two at $15.4 million assessed value for the plant and number 32 for the $2.5 million value of the property owned by Weavexx Corporate. In 2002, Home Depot’s property was assessed at $6.2 million, and Target’s property at $3.4 million.
