Robbins, NC, Apr. 15--The shuttered textile mill that once employed hundreds of northern Moore County workers has been sold.
Jeff Schwarz and Robert Burr of Asheboro bought the 286,000-square-foot plant, formerly operated by Milliken & Co., from the town for $185,000. The town closed on the deal April 7.
Robbins Mayor Mickey Brown said the sale was long overdue.
"That was the third offer we had had on it, and the other two didn't close," Brown said. He said the price was a bargain. "Our position was that we could get immediate funds for it," he said.
Brown said the town had been spending more than $800 a month to keep the power and security systems on inside the building. Selling it puts the building back on the tax rolls.
Schwarz, who owns more than 1,200 buildings over throughout the Southeast, including one of the Swift Denim cotton plants in Erwin, said he plans to divide separate the plant into two or three sections and rent them.
He said he has signed a deal to rent about 10,000 square feet to a small furniture factory, although he declined to disclose the company's name. Schwarz said he was negotiating with a small food distributor for another section of the building.
The Milliken plant was originally the site of the old Robbins Mill, named for the town's primary benefactor and namesake. The garment factory brought Sen. John Edwards' family to Robbins in 1965. Edwards worked there as a teenager during his summer breaks.
Last year, Edwards announced his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in front of the closed factory.
Milliken closed the plant in 1990, eliminating 235 jobs. During the next 15 years, other Robbins factories closed: Ithaca Industries in 1998, Carolina Lace in 2000, Mansion Homes in 2002 and Perdue Farms in 2003.
Last summer, Dynamic Homes reopened the mobile home plant and restored more than 100 jobs.
It's unclear whether the Milliken plant sale will have a similar effect on the town's job market.
Ray Ogden, executive director of Moore County Partners in Progress, an economic development group, said the sale would at least raise the property's visibility in the real estate market and Schwarz's own marketing circles.
"It's an old mill building, and there's a lot of those around," Ogden said. "The strength of the building is clearly in the people of Robbins."
