METHUEN — The owner of a local company that employs 130 people is threatening to move out of state unless Polartec sells him an acre of land so he can expand his growing business.
Al Kagan, whose family owns Century Box Co. on Chase Street, said he is busier than ever and needs more room.
"We haven't been affected by the economy," said Kagan, who runs the company with his sons. "We are expanding. I just bought a state-of-the-art machine for $3.5 million, and I have no space."
College Street Management, or CSM, the development arm of the company that owns Polartec, has so far refused to sell the roughly 1-acre parcel of land, infuriating Kagan and prompting him to begin looking elsewhere to expand his business.
"We have an offer to move down South," he said. "We'd use this (building) as a warehouse."
The property in question is a mostly vacant parcel between Kagan's business and a group of homes near Polartec, at the corner of Chase and French streets. It is worth about $100,000, Kagan said.
The reason CSM has been unable to sell the property is that it still is waiting to hear from the state on whether it receives financing to move ahead with a housing, retail and manufacturing complex on 38 acres of land that straddles the border of Lawrence and Methuen.
"As soon as I find out my project's going forward, I'd love to help them out," said David Nyberg, president of CSM. "I can't do it (sell the land) without knowing what's happening with my development."
For about two years, Nyberg has been working on a deal to subdivide the enormous, former Malden Mills property into at least two distinct parcels. One would be occupied by Polartec, the manufacturing facility that makes the fleece products made famous by Malden Mills. The other, larger part of the property, now occupied by mostly vacant mill buildings of various shapes and sizes, would be converted into about 500 units of housing, along with office and retail space.
A vacant parcel in front of Polartec, fronting Route 28 (Broadway) in Methuen, would be occupied by a retail strip mall.
Century Box Co., which is adjacent to Polartec and is in Methuen, wants to carve out a piece of that parcel for its expansion, Kagan said. But he said CSM and Polartec, and before that Malden Mills and Aaron Feuerstein, along with city officials from Methuen and Lawrence, have been dragging their feet. He even claims to have been lied to about what the plans are for that parcel of land.
"A year ago, they (CSM) said it's ours," Kagan said. "We got to know this was untrue months ago — they weren't going to sell us this piece of land. We felt we were getting steam rolled."
He said during one recent meeting engineers for CSM pulled out plans that showed how the land in question was going to become a parking lot for Polartec employees.
As a result, Kagan has come out against the state-backed financing plan, going so far as to write a letter to the state Office of Housing and Community Development saying that CSM should not get the low-income housing tax credits it has applied for and which are critical to the successful financing of the housing, retail and manufacturing project.
Tom Schiavone, the economic development director for Lawrence, hosted a meeting in his office several weeks ago with all of the stakeholders, including the Kagans, CSM and representatives from O'Neil Associates, a lobbying and public relations firm working for CSM, and city officials from Methuen.
During that meeting, Schiavone said, Nyberg made a verbal and written promise that his company would sell the property to the Kagans as soon as financing for his project was done.
"Nyberg made that clear to Kagan," Schiavone said. "He put it in writing. He said, 'I want to sell you the property.'"
Schiavone said Kagan is going to have to wait until the larger deal is done, and that he should back off his opposition to the affordable housing tax credits.
"We are perplexed by the direction the Kagans are taking," he said. "I don't know what else I can do. ... We are doing what we can to see both developments work."
But Kagan said he fears that if he waits and CSM gets the financing it needs, Versa Capital Management, which owns the entire property, including Polartec, will sell out and move on.
"They are a liquidator company," he said. "They want to sell it."
He said he has received many verbal commitments regarding the property, but he wants a written legal commitment to sell him the property.
Kagan said his lawyer drew up a purchase and sale agreement based on what was said during the meeting in Schiavone's office, but CSM has refused to sign it.
"I got an e-mail from Nyberg and O'Neil Associates saying, 'You're impeding progress,'" Kagan said. "It's not that I want to torpedo a project, yet it sounds like I do."
He said the expansion of his company would be a huge benefit both for Methuen and Lawrence, where 80 percent of his employees are from. While he now employs 130 people, expansion plans would add another 30 employees.
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