FM Stone Commercial’s Brent Miller, SIOR, and Carl Tiedemann, SIOR, represented Utilimaster Corporation, a Spartan Motors company, in the sale of 13 industrial buildings totaling 510,350 square feet on its Wakarusa, Indiana, campus. The company, which is moving to a new location in Bristol, sold 13 of the campus’ 14 buildings to Forest River. Forest River’s new buildings sit on 91.02 acres on State Road 19 in Wakarusa. FM Stone’s Pete Letherman, SIOR, CCIM, represented Forest River, a Berkshire Hathaway company, in the sale.
The buildings were on the market for just over 9 months and were being exclusively represented by Elkhart’s FM Stone Commercial. Buildings range in size from 10,590 square feet to 90,270 square feet and were part of one of Wakarusa’s largest manufacturing facilities.
“The sale of the Wakarusa facility represents an important step in the transition of Utilimaster’s operations to Bristol,” said John Sztykiel, President and CEO of Spartan Motors, Inc. “As we finalize the move and ramp up production, we expect the new, modern plant to support Utilimaster’s long-term growth and enable us to achieve our potential in Delivery and Service Vehicles.”
The move to Bristol, Indiana, located 20 miles northeast of Wakarusa, will consolidate Utilimaster's operations into one 425,000-square-foot facility from its current campus of multiple buildings. Moving into a single plant, combined with lean manufacturing practices, is expected to help enable Utilimaster to improve product quality and manufacturing efficiency, and is also expected to save the company up to $4 million annually.
One building on the Wakarusa campus is still available for sale through FM Stone Commercial. This 3- story 30,150 SF office building on 4.18 acres features an elevator, a climate-controlled computer room, covered loading dock, six rest rooms, heavy power, and geo-thermal heating and air conditioning.
