The company, Clarksville Foundry, is currently located on Red River Street in downtown Clarksville. They provide casting services in addition to machining and secondary operations and also specialize in casting services such as ductile iron castings, gray iron castings, prototype castings and many others.
Current location 110 years old
Site 8 of the Industrial Park totals about 80 acres of land. Within that development site is a tract of land with 16.9 developable acres and an additional 10 acres in the flood zone, for a total of 26.9 acres.
“Their current factory is to be sold and redeveloped with the Vulcan site,” said Josh Ward, director of economic development. “So, this expansion not only gives them room to grow, but it also frees up some property on the Vulcan site for redevelopment. The new location will expand their capacity for employment, and it will get them into a better tenant mix in the Industrial Park.”
Charles Foust Jr., president of Clarksville Foundry, said during the meeting that the business can be traced back to 1847 with the first location on Commerce Street. The current location was purchased over a century ago.
“My grandfather acquired the current location in 1912,” he said. “In 1912, that was the Industrial Park. That was outside of downtown. We have about maxed out our ability to produce on the current site, and we’ve got a lot of great opportunities in front of us as far as future business and so forth.”
Larry Rocconi, legal representative for Clarksville Foundry, was also at the meeting and stated the company is looking to purchase the land from IDB as soon as possible.
“The Foundry’s plan is start developing this. I know right now, we’re already out of room. The plan would be to maybe get a warehouse on it to support our dies and some of our patterns and then look to move out of our current location, which would free that up for more development downtown,” Rocconi said.
Access road needed
The IDB land was priced at $58,000 per acre for the development site and $11,600 per acre for the land in the flood zone.
Clarksville Foundry presented an offer at full appraised value totaling $1,096,200, minus the cost of an access road that would need to be built. The plan is for the foundry to construct the road and then donate the road back to the county.
“The plan is we’re going to construct it at their (the Foundry’s) expense. We’re going to then dedicate it to the county, so it will be a county road (with) county standards at the site,” Rocconi said.
The estimated cost of that road is around $293,950, which would be credited to the company on the purchase agreement in order to construct it.
“Of the 16.9 acres that they’re paying full price for, 2.1 of that is where the road is. So that 2.1 (acres), they’re going to purchase it and then give it back to us,” said Buck Dellinger, president/CEO of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council.
The measure to enter into a purchase agreement with Clarksville Foundry was unanimously approved by the IDB.
Source: www.clarksvillenow.com
