ORLANDO-After three years of trying to find a buyer for its five-building, 1.1-million-sf, 200-acre manufacturing and office campus, Allentown, PA-based Agere Systems will be closing its operations in September after completing delivery contracts with global clients. The company said in October 2004 it would shut down operations in December 2005, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.
The asking price for the sprawling property on south John Young Parkway has never been disclosed by either the company or brokers representing the firm. However, metro area industrial brokers who have done deals in the John Young Parkway south submarket tell GlobeSt.com Agere officials were expecting a top price in the $2-billion range for their combined real estate at one time, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.
"While this is arguably the largest high-tech facility of its kind in Orlando and probably in all of Florida, you're not going to get a major bulk warehouse distributor or a national distribution center developer, for example, bidding for this asset, mainly because of the costly retrofitting that would be involved," a long-time south Orlando broker who previously tried to find a buyer for the property tells GlobeSt.com.>p>The non-sale of the plant is expected to be a double blow to both the industrial real estate market here and the local economy. Adding 1.1 million sf of combined vacant manufacturing and office space to metro Orlando's total 63-million-sf industrial market isn't exactly what existing property owners like to see, brokers tell GlobeSt.com.
Besides the loss of jobs to the community, another big loser in the plant's closing will be the Orange County government. Agere has been paying about $3 million in annual property taxes over the past six years, county tax records confirm. Agere is the county's largest taxpayers after Walt Disney World Co. and Universal Orlando.
Agere's workforce has shrunk to 545 employees from 1,800 in 2000, according to the company. The plant has 165 managers for 380 workers. The workers are represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union. The plant manufactures electronic chips for computing and communication applications. New customers will be handled by Agere's plant in Singapore, the company states.
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