Grover Industries is still looking for a buyer after an independent developer who executed a purchase contract last year on the building in Lynn pulled out of that sale.
Carr Swicegood, out of Asheville, executed a purchase contract n the 55,000-square-foot Grover Industries Inc. plant last March. Swicegood had a 90-day contingency on the purchase and pulled out prior to the 90 days running out.
Polk County Economic Development Director Kipp McIntyre says county and other officials explored some options for the building, but nothing so far has worked out. At one time, officials were considering an agricultural center, but the countys agricultural department was offered the former Mill Spring School as a donation, so plans shifted to that building with a center being worked on now.
Swicegood had good ideas for the former plant. He didnt have specific plans for the building, but said during the purchase negotiations that he wanted to make the building “green,”wanted to look into getting electricity off the river and look into creating spaces for jobs in the building.
The Grover building is located along the Pacolet River in Lynn, situated on Clarence Rhodes Road between Capps Road and the Lynn Post Office.
The plant began as a hosiery mill in the late 1800s. For the past four to five decades the plant was operated as a dye plant for coarse county yarns. After business began dwindling over the last decade, the plant shut down in 2008.
Long time plant operator Gary Semmel still reports to the Lynn office from time to time to oversee the building. At one time there were other offers on the building if Swicegoods purchase did not pan out, but no offers have been made public recently.
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