A deal to purchase a warehouse and office space at the former Microtek Medical facilities at 602 Lehmberg Road has closed.
Realtor Royce Hudspeth told The Dispatch a buyer closed on the deal Wednesday with previous owners, Minnesota-based Ecolab. The buyer has chosen to remain anonymous at this time.
“He is from out of state, and he is not ready to discuss any details as to what is intended with the building,” Hudspeth said. “… I will say they’re not an end user (they won’t operate the facility). They would be willing to repurpose (it), perhaps.”
Hudspeth said the property also features a separate office building and an additional warehouse, which was sold to the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors for $500,000 earlier this year. All three buildings were for sale since 2021.
According to the property listing on Loopnet, the listing price was $799,000. The property includes 30,140 square feet of warehouse space and 8,774 square feet of office space. Hudspeth declined to disclose the purchase price.
The building was operated in 2004 by Microtek Medical, a Georgia-based medical supply company. The business was acquired by Ecolab in 2007. In 2015, the company downsized the Columbus facility, which manufactured surgical instruments and equipment, and moved some of its operations to Florida. Ecolab announced in 2021 that it would close the Columbus facility by mid-2022.
Hudspeth said one of the reasons that drew the buyer to purchase the building was the ongoing development of Aluminum Dynamics, a 2,100-acre aluminum flat roll mill being built on Charleigh D. Ford Jr. Drive.
The company announced it would invest $2.5 billion in 2022 to build the plant near the Golden Triangle Regional Airport and a biocarbon manufacturing plant on Artesia Road, near the International Paper pulp mill.
“(Selling it) was just a matter of timing,” he said. “I will say that the increased activity from some of the things that are happening in West Lowndes County with the aluminum plant and some of the other industries are very positive.”
Golden Triangle Development LINK Chief Operating Officer Meryl Fisackerly said that new economic development in Lowndes County would spur outside buyers to come into the area with smaller businesses or storage space. However, she declined to disclose any such companies by name.
“We’ve seen companies and industries wanting to locate in the area, just given recent announcements and recent economic growth,” Fisackerly said. “What we’re seeing is these are smaller companies that might do services for these other industries or they might be warehousing. It’s twofold when the bigger industry locates, and then we see these smaller ones wanting to locate close to them.”
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