STARKVILLE — Sullivan’s Business and Office Supply has purchased the former CURiO candle-making factory on Lynn Lane and will expand its warehousing operations there.
Sullivan’s co-owner Tyson Langston told The Dispatch he and his family closed on the deal Friday for the 62,000-square-foot industrial facility with the former Starkville Community Church. The company, which has been in business since 1959, intends to use about 10,000 square feet to house storage and warehousing to expand its office supply business located in downtown Starkville.
“We needed some additional warehousing space over what we have downtown,” Langston said. “There’s only so much room downtown, and it’s just getting a little harder and harder to get trucks in (there).”
Langston and former pastor Joseph Horan declined to disclose a purchase price.
SCC owned the property for nearly 20 years and leased a portion of it to candle manufacturer CURiO. The church began negotiations in July 2022 to sell the property to developer Mark Castleberry, but the deal fell through in February after CURiO shut down its facility and laid off 27 employees.
SCC merged with Calvary Baptist Church in November 2022 to form Bridgeway Church at the former Calvary location on North Jackson Street.
Horan said the church had initially rented the space to the Langstons in June and began negotiating for a sale earlier this month.
“They came back and said ‘We would really like to purchase the building. We think it would work well for our expansion,’” Horan said.
“We’re excited to move into the future as a church and to be able to focus on our core mission and not be landlords. We’re also excited that a company that is a local business and a local family with deep roots in Starkville bought the building.”
Langston said aside from using the space as its own warehouse, the company will also seek to rent out the other warehousing space and the former church on the other side.
The Langstons will also renovate part of the facility to improve the property’s aesthetic and repair some of the garage doors at the loading zone.
“We’d love to find a church to lease that half of the building as it’s already set up,” he said. “The main point here is that we are reinvesting in our community, and we are only going to make improvements to the property. We look forward to serving whatever tenants out there that we do find.”
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