pLOWVILLE — It was the end of an era Wednesday afternoon as equipment at the shuttered Climax Packaging was sold off piece by piece to online bidders./pp“It’s sad to see it come to this conclusion and know that there weren’t any opportunities to resurrect a business,” Lewis County Manager Elizabeth Swearingin said just prior to the online auction, conducted by Thomas Industries Inc., Guilford, Conn. “Hopefully, Delta Point Capital, as the owners, will actively search for a new tenant and not abandon the property and let it fall into disrepair.”/ppMrs. Swearingin said that she and other county officials, including several legislators, last week took a tour of the Route 26 facility, and she was struck by the sheer size of the 150,000-square-foot building, which was built in 1980./ppThe facility, given its size, could be either marketed for a single business or several smaller ones, Lewis County Economic Development Director Eric J. Virkler has said./ppThe interior will soon seem even more vast, as high bidders on most of the 462 items in the auction have until June 24 to remove them from the property, with those purchasing printing presses given an extra week./ppOn-line bidding on the Climax equipment was opened some time ago, but bidding became more feverish as the Wednesday afternoon closing times got closer./ppA few big-ticket items went early, with one Bobst folder-gluer securing $232,000 after 111 total bids and another older model fetching $151,000. A web flexographic printing press also brought in $125,000./ppBidding on the first item ended at 1 p.m., with bidding on subsequent items to close each minute thereafter. Due to the large number of bid lots, the auction was expected to take nearly eight hours to complete./ppAlong with the manufacturing equipment, various other items were sold off, including office furniture, pallet lift trucks and forklifts, tools, computer and label printers, a pair of defibrillators and even a set of lockers./ppClimax, which started in Castorland, was operated for more than 100 years by the Hirschey family before being sold in May 2008 to Climax Acquisition LLC, a group led by private investment company DeltaPoint Capital Management, Rochester./ppThe local plant, which manufactured food and retail boxes, was abruptly shuttered April 1, displacing 158 workers./ppDeltaPoint officials claim the company never recovered from the great recession that hit nine years ago, around the time the investment firm took over the more than century-old business, and they were forced to close the facility after being unable to complete a last-ditch effort to the plant./ppAs part of an earlier attempt to raise capital funds, Climax in July 2014 sold its equipment to Utica LeaseCo, Utica, Mich., in a buy/lease back agreement, so proceeds of the auction will go to that firm./ppFollowing the plant’s closure, the Lewis County Industrial Development Agency picked up the lease through April for $49,500 to allow time to seek a possible buyer. However, after getting little interest on that front, the agency’s board of directors decided not to make a second monthly payment, allowing the lease to expire May 8./ppOfficials from Thomas Industries and Utica LeaseCo did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the auction./ppCarthage Specialty Paperboard, which was split off from Climax in 2013, remains in operation under the auspice of DeltaPoint. It has about 80 employees./p
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