PPG lists plant for sale

A Mississauga realtor is listing the massive former PPG building on 73 acres for $6.1 million.

City officials released the news yesterday afternoon.

The building is 600,000 square feet -- that's 16 acres under its roof. It includes offices, truck bays, high ceilings, heavy power and enormous warehouse space, said Steve Furness, Owen Sound's manager of economic development and tourism.

The property owners made the listing deal with Avison Young Realtors and the city is "cheerleading."

"We see this as the leading opportunity for the city in terms of a built facility," Furness said.

Faced with a slumping glass market and as much as $50 million to rebuild its furnace, the American-based owners of the former glass plant announced in September it would close early this year.

Hundreds packed the cavernous facility in May as an auctioneer dispersed the glass plant's remaining equipment, putting an end to the factory's 42-year history in Owen Sound.

Management said then the plant would be carefully mothballed, to keep open any possibility it could resume production with a significant investment.

The plant once had 500 employees in Owen Sound. Its closure put 170 people out of work and was a huge economic blow to the city. Officials have said PPG paid roughly $400,000 in property taxes to the city and another $400,000 in combined education and Grey County taxes. Vacant, the building taxes would drop by 35%.

Furness said the empty facility is well maintained and, along with the strengths of the local workforce and the city's other benefits, is now a key city asset in attracting manufacturing to Owen Sound. In the past, he added, discussions with potential manufacturers have been impeded by the lack of empty, available manufacturing facilities.

"It's a very large building and that may pose a challenge for smaller users, but here we have an opportunity to market a very large building and get a very large potential user in there," Furness said. "It's a large facility even for Toronto standards . . . who knows who might be interested?"