SRC buys Regal Beloit plant

Last edited 8:44 a.m., Dec. 22, 2015

SRC Holdings Corp. subsidiary Southwest Missouri Investments Inc. today purchased the former Regal Beloit manufacturing plant on East Sunshine Street.

SRC CEO Jack Stack said his company closed at 1 p.m. on the purchase from Beloit, Wis.-based owner Regal Beloit Corp. (NYSE: RBC.) He declined to disclose financial terms for the 2401 E. Sunshine St. property, which was listed last year by R.B. Murray Co. at $11 million.

Stack said the plant could be used to manufacture motors and components similar to Regal before it announced in 2013 it was closing the Springfield facility. The most immediate use, though, would be storage.

“We were pretty well maxed out where we were. We couldn’t take another order,” he said. “If those trucks aren’t moving tonight, I’d be surprised.”

The executive said SRC recently landed an unnamed client that necessitated additional space. The 325,355-square-foot Regal Beloit building sits on 43 acres.

With the purchase, SRC is suspending its plans for a 100,000-square-foot warehouse and manufacturing plant on 59 acres at the southwest corner of Mulroy Road and Kearney Street.

Stack said using an existing building, instead of constructing from the ground up, would alleviate concerns with city ordinances, including a rule that requires sidewalks to be constructed on new developments.

“We had to move fast,” he said.

In July 2013, Regal Beloit announced plans to lay off roughly 330 workers over an 18-month period to move the manufacturing of motors and components to other Regal operations in the United States and Mexico.

The plant had been under contract with a development group connected to real estate mogul and St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke, but those plans never came to fruition.