The Motus Integrated Technologies building, at 221 Fabritek Drive, is listed for sale for $1.6 million.
The sale was posted on LoopNet, a commercial real estate website on May 12. Scott Farmer, Realtor with Farmer Commercial Properties, is the listing agent.
The property, located adjacent to the Columbus-Lowndes County Airport, is industrially zoned with 67,570 square feet of manufacturing and storage space and 6,000 square feet of office space.
Two former employees for Motus told The Dispatch the plant closed in late May, though company representatives did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Farmer declined to comment further on the property listing, other than to say it is still active.
County tax records show Motus acquired the building in 2019 when it bought Janesville Acoustics, which had made fiber pieces and fabric liners for the automotive industry since 2012. The property was previously owned by 221 Fabritek Drive, LLC, which bought it from the original owner, Mississippi Fabritek LLC, in 2008. Both of those companies produced fabrics and textiles.
Lowndes County Tax Assessor Greg Andrews told The Dispatch the property has been appraised at $526,550 since 2015, when his office depreciated it based on declining income reports. Andrews added that a previous appraisal from 2010 indicated the property could be worth about $1 million.
Motus also went before the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors and Columbus City Council in May to ask them to waive their respective first rights of refusal to purchase the property, Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston said. Both the city and county agreed, and Hairston told The Dispatch the county had no foreseeable need for the building.
“If I were in a heavy construction or some other area where I needed warehouse space, this thing might be worth it to me for that but it’s not worth it for us as a governmental entity to buy it for that amount,” Hairston said.
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