By CHARLES RICHARDS
eParisExtra.com
For the first time since it was built almost a decade ago, the “C Tech Building” in the city’s Industrial Park has a tenant.
“I am pleased to announce that building has been leased to WinField Solutions, LLC,” Steve Gilbert, executive director of the Paris Economic Development Corporation told the PEDC board during its meeting on Tuesday.
WinField Solutions is owned by Land O’ Lakes, one of the largest producers of butter and cheese in the United States.
“We’re actually in the chemical part of it, for farmers and ranchers,” a WinField employee told eParisExtra.com at the site late Tuesday afternoon. Before the move, WinField Solutions operated locally out of 2220 NE Loop 286.
“They have relocated into the Industrial Park, and I think they have a lease-purchase agreement with the owner,” Gilbert said.
“Actually, yesterday was our first day here. We just moved in,” the WinField employee said.
Gilbert said as far as he knows, this is the first time anyone has moved into the property. The building was built “about 2004 or 2005″ when Gary Vest was the PEDC executive director, Gilbert said.
The Land O’ Lakes subsidiary is one of the nation’s largest distributors of professional products for turf, ornamental, pest control, aquatics and vegetation management.
The company has 80 service centers across the country and close to 100 sales representatives in golf course management, lawn and sports turf management, pest control, aquatics, and vegetative management markets.
The building continues to be owned by C Tech, which got lucrative incentives from the PEDC to come here. The company abandoned its plans for Paris, and the project has become etched in local memory as the PEDC’s outstanding embarrassment.
“No question about it, it’s going to be good just to have activity out there and have the building back on the tax rolls,” Gilbert said Tuesday night.
“Well, it’s always been on the tax roll because (the owner of C Tech) has been paying taxes on the building . But get it active, you know,” Gilbert added.
Charles Richards Charles Richards moved to Paris in 2004 after retiring from a 40-year career in journalism – the last 26 years as a news writer and sports writer with The Associated Press in Dallas and Washington, D.C. In mid-2004, The Paris News coaxed him out of retirement, and he began covering the police, court and regional beat for The Paris News. Then in early 2005, he was switched to coverage of a sharply divided Paris City Council. He was appointed by the City Council in 2006 to the 12-member City Charter Review Commission, which extensively rewrote the outmoded document. His writing awards include two first-place awards in statewide competition for feature writing. The most recent was his 2005 story on a Paris doctor’s startling use of leeches in a successful attempt to re-attach a man’s severed ear. Over his career, Richards’ interview subjects include Alabama Gov. George Wallace, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, David Koresh, Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali and numerous other political and sports figures. He is an alumnus of Texas Tech, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He lives in Paris with his wife, Barbara, who is retired after 30 years as a teacher and high school counselor.
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