Barnes' move still in limbo

PAYSON — Barnes Bullets, a Lindon-based ammunition-maker, wants to move to larger facilities, but it still doesn't have a deal with the owner of the vacant Knaack manufacturing building.

It's not for lack of trying.

"Our offer was not accepted," LaMar Brooks, vice president of Barnes Bullets said.

Knaack's parent company, Emerson Electric of St. Louis, countered the offer and now Barnes officials are offering its own counter offer, Brooks said. Discussions have been going on for months, however, a spokesman for the owner had no comment.

The original asking price for the sprawling building was $8.95 million. Listing agent Kneel Robinson said the 354,000 square-foot building that sits on 22 acres now carries a price tag of $7.9 million.

"It's still alive," Robinson said of the negotiations.

Meanwhile, the plant remains on the block for other offers.

"Someone else could get in the game," Robinson said. But since large business deals like this one move so slowly, Barnes would likely have a chance to stay in.

"Some deals take as long as three years," Robinson said.

Knaack, which manufactured tool boxes and other industrial items at the plant, shut down about a year ago to return to its Crystal Lake, Ill., home base. The move cost about 120 workers their jobs. When Knaack opened in 1997 as a link to the West Coast market, officials predicted it would bring as many as 400 new jobs to Utah County.

Knaack products are sold wholesale, so the business wasn't contributing to Payson's sales tax base. However, the owner continues to pay property taxes, officials said.

City leaders were enthusiastic about Barnes' proposal to leave its 45,000-square-foot plant on Lindon's west side to move to Payson, anticipating the move would give new life into the struggling Payson Business Park. Lindon is about 25 miles north of Payson.

"We hate to see him go," Lindon City manager Ott Dameron said, speaking of Barnes Bullets' co-owner Randy Brooks. "He's been a good neighbor."

Randy Brooks sold some of the Barnes Bullets property to Lindon for the new Lindon-Pleasant Grove I-15 interchange and for the pump station that drives the two recirculating water fountains at the interchange.