559,868-square-foot facility available in early 2017
Avison Young, the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm, announced today that Polartec’s former world headquarters and primary manufacturing facility, located at 46 Stafford Street in Methuen, MA, are being marketed for sale.
Totaling approximately 560,000 square feet (sf), 46 Stafford Street consists of two buildings: a two-story, 495,000-sf building known as the Polartec Building, and another attached single-story, 65,000-sf structure referred to as Fin II.
Avison Young Principals Scott Jamieson and Michael Smith, along with Senior Vice- President Michael Buckley, Vice-President Brandon Dickason and senior financial analyst Derek Opert, who are all based in the firm’s Boston office, are marketing the building for sale on behalf of owner Versa Capital Management, LLC. In addition, Avison Young Principal Keith Gurtler, along with Senior Vice-Presidents Michael McCarthy and Tom Aitken, also based in the firm’s Boston office, will co-ordinate the leasing for the property.
“Avison Young is honored to receive the sales listing and leasing assignments for the Polartec and Fin II buildings,” comments Jamieson. “The site has an interesting history, and we’re looking forward to finding a new owner and tenants who will have more intriguing stories to tell in the future.”
The buildings will be ready for occupancy in early 2017.
The Polartec Building is one of the newest class A manufacturing buildings in the greater Methuen market. In late 1995, a widely publicized explosion sparked a fire that destroyed much of the manufacturing complex that formerly housedMalden Mills. The company’s owner and CEO Aaron Feuerstein famously paid all 3,000 employees their regular salaries and continued to provide health benefits while the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility was being reconstructed.
Malden Mills later became Polartec (now a subsidiary of Versa Capital), which has invested in various renovations and upgrades since the post-fire buildings’completion in 1996. The renovations and upgrades include a Bahnson air-wash system to clean, condition and humidify air, a 3-million-gallon-per-day water treatment system with a 210,000-gallon storage tank, an exterior 100,000-gallon, above-ground oil tank, and a Munck Autech automated storage/retrieval system (AS/RS).
“This significant infrastructure can be attractive to a wide variety of new industries that could locate here and benefit from a deep labor pool nearby,” says Smith.
Located just off of Route 28, the 46 Stafford Street site provides convenient access to I-93 and I-495.
Smith continues: “Proximity to these two major highways is ideal for manufacturing and distribution facilities, as I-93 and I-495 intersect several major roadways and provide tremendous access to the whole of New England The accessibility to these major roadways alsodrawsa highly-skilled labor force from both the local, densely-populated Merrimack Valley area, as well as from Eastern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire.”
About Polartec
From its factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Polartec continues to pioneer leading fabric technologies – category defining fabrics – used in the most challenging environments around the globe. For what began as Polartec’s original fleece quickly became a new benchmark to be exceeded. High loft and grid fleece would soon push performance standards dramatically upwards. In 1993, recycled plastic bottles become the new grist for Polartec’s mill, creating a whole new family of warm, soft, and sustainable, upcycled synthetic fabrics. With innovation now a driving force, fleece was only the beginning. Today, Polartec is the global leader in performance fabric technologies for all conditions. By continuing to provide solutions to seemingly impossible problems, Polartec collaborates with the world’s leading brands to invent what doesn’t yet exist. Polartec challenges the status-quo of the industry at every layer, turning shortcomings into new solutions.
About Versa Capital Management, LLC
Based in Philadelphia, Versa Capital Management, LLC is a private equity investment firm focused on control investments in special situations involving middle market companies where value and performance growth can be achieved through enhanced operational and financial management, and has a diverse portfolio of North American consumer and industrial businesses including Allen-Vanguard International, Avenue Stores, Black Angus Steakhouse, Bridgestreet Global, Polartec, Standard Parking, and Hatteras Yachts. More information can be found at Versa.com.
About Avison Young
Avison Young is the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Avison Young is a collaborative, global firm owned and operated by its principals. Founded in 1978, the company comprises 2,400 real estate professionals in 78 offices, providing value-added, client-centric investment sales, leasing, advisory, management, financing and mortgage placement services to owners and occupiers of office, retail, industrial and multi-family properties.
