COBLESKILL Wal-Mart contractor eyeing former fabric mill property Warehousing operation sought BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter
A Wal-Mart Stores contractor is scouting the Mohawk Valley for sites for a warehousing operation, and the former Guilford Mills South Plant is emerging as a prime candidate.
Pyramid Brokerage Co., a Kingston commercial real estate fi rm, has been hired by Crate Services to fi nd a 200,000-square-foot space in the Cobleskill area.
Crate Services is a contractor for the Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, which has distribution facilities in Johnstown and Sharon Springs, according to documents filed Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Albany.
A Pyramid representative earlier this week received a tour of the former fabric mill.
Pyramid left the facility finding it “meets the requirements” and wanting to “proceed lease negotiations immediately,” Pyramid Managing Director and Principal Broker Steve Perfit said in a Nov. 19 letter to mill owner Philip Rahaim.
According to the letter, Crate Services wants to occupy the facility around Dec. 1.
It is also seeking the possible expansion of space to 400,000 square feet around Jan. 1.
The prospect of such a large tenant offers promising news for Rahaim’s Cobleskill Business Park, which filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in August.
Cobleskill Business was supposed to file a reorganization plan Friday but instead asked for an extension.
The company submitted Perfi t’s letter as evidence it is “close to a lease which will allow it to propose a plan for a 100 percent repayment.”
Cobleskill Business filed for Chapter 11 two days before a deadline to pay $1.3 million in delinquent taxes or lose the property to a Schoharie County foreclosure action.
Rahaim has spent the past four years rehabilitating the former lace mill, which closed in 2001 and is now ready to take on tenants.
In 2003, Rahaim bought the defunct mill, which consists of two buildings on a 39-acre parcel on Mineral Springs Road. At its peak, Guilford employed over 500 workers.
“We had hoped we would have the deal or a similar deal done by today, but it’s just taking a little longer,” said Richard Weisz, Cobleskill Business’ attorney.
Perfit at Pyramid told The Daily Gazette that the Cobleskill Business deal is “in the preliminary stages” and that lease negotiations have not started.............. http://www.dailygazette.net/Re.....=Ar00401&Locale=
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