Last edited 4 p.m., Oct. 22, 2013After sitting vacant since March 2011, plastic packaging systems manufacturer Buckhorn Inc. quietly took over 120,000 square feet at the former Solo Cup plant about a month ago.
Listed as a notable transaction in commercial real estate tracker Xceligent’s third quarter
Market Trends Report, the lease fills a portion of the nearly 1 million-square-foot manufacturing facility owned by Warren Davis Properties.
Larry Spilker, Buckhorn plant manager at 2727 N. Partnership Blvd., said the company has consolidated two 50,000-square-foot warehouses in north Springfield.
“Leases were up on those, so we went out and searched and ended up doing 120,000 square feet and moved out of our other locations,” Spilker said, adding the facilities were located within a block of each other on North Oak Grove Street and East Jean Street. “That saves us from having people in two different locations. We’ve got everything in one place now.”
Spilker said Buckhorn is not planning to move from its Springfield operations facility in the Partnership Industrial Center.
Patrick Harrington, listing agent for Warren Davis Properties, said while Buckhorn is the first tenant to fill a portion of the 720,000-square-foot building that faces Glenstone Avenue since the plant closed, there are two tenants that fill a substantial portion of the 1.35 million-square-foot Solo Cup complex. Harrington said 230,000 square feet has been leased by Springfield-based NewStream Enterprises, a division of SRC Holdings Corp., since May of last year. That building, which is connected to the main Glenstone-facing plant, can be accessed from Chestnut Expressway. SRC also has leased a 410,000-square-foot facility southeast of the main building on East Pythian Street since 2007.
According to WarrenDavisProperties.com, lease space available at the facility ranges from 68,700 square feet to 597,450 square feet at rates ranging from $2.75 per square foot to $10 per square foot.
In March 2011, Solo Cup ceased operations at the facility that had employed 1,200 at its peak, according to Springfield Business Journal archives. In August 2010, two months after Solo announced plans to close its doors, Davis Properties purchased the building.[[In-content Ad]]
