Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Delta Dental buys lens factory
The local company paid $7 million for the technologically equipped building.
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The empty 7-year-old factory beside Interstate 581 in Roanoke that once housed Johnson & Johnson's Spectacle Lens division has been sold to a local company, Delta Dental of Virginia.
The purchase price was $7 million according to a deed in the Roanoke courthouse, less than half the $14.6 million value listed on the city's tax books for the 146,000-square foot, technologically equipped building.
Michael Wise, chief financial officer for Delta Dental, said his company purchased an option on the factory with plans to move its operations, now on Starkey Road Southwest, into the building at 2797 Frontage Road NW.
"The more we looked, the more we decided it was not feasible at this time" to move Delta Dental's offices into the manufacturing structure, Wise said.
"But we liked the property, and we have decided to purchase it as an investment," Wise said.
Delta Dental wants to recruit a tenant for the building, Wise said, with the help of Waldvogel Commercial Properties. Waldvogel brokered the sale with Johnson & Johnson and its agent, Binswanger Realty Group.
Brian Townsend, acting assistant city manager for community development, said the transaction allows recruiters to focus on finding a company that can use all of the factory's office, communications and technology components. Ideally, such a tenant could grow into full use of the building, Townsend said.
Previously, marketing efforts focused on finding a company that could afford to purchase the building, in addition to making full use of its features, he said.
For Delta Dental, Wise said, the purchase "represents a diversification of our investment.
"It's not something we went looking for, but the more we looked at it, we thought it was attractive at the price and also an opportunity to bring a good business to the Roanoke Valley.
"It's a world-class manufacturing facility, and we think it would be good for the community if we were able to lease that as a business and bring good-paying jobs to our community," Wise said.
Opened in 2000 with fanfare of bringing high-tech jobs to Roanoke, the factory's mission was producing a new, progressive-addition Definity lens for eyeglasses. The lens was first produced with a surface-casting process developed by Roanoke inventor Ronald Blum.
Production problems ensued, and layoffs followed. The factory relaunched the Definity lens in 2003 with a new production process.
Two years later, in June 2005, the company sold the Definity lens to a competitor, Essilor.
By December of that year, the plant was listed for sale by Binswanger.
Marketing efforts for the building at first focused on finding a buyer who could use all its features, but the only candidates to emerge were companies that could use only one or two of its characteristics, Townsend said.
"Some users didn't need all of the square footage, and others didn't need all of the technology built into the building," Townsend said.
"Now that we have local corporate ownership we will support their effort to find a tenant," Townsend said.
