Big Industrial brings big changes to huge space in Will Rogers Business Park
Famous name Former tire plant is now Will Rogers Business Park

Will Rogers Business Park never met a tenant that its owners didn’t like.

Go ahead and moan.

But Big Industrial, the Kansas company that bought the former Bridgestone/Firestone Dayton Tire plant two years ago, converted it to space for lease and renamed it after Oklahoma’s favorite son — who famously said he "never met a man” he "didn’t like” — means it when it says it’s flexible.

The owners recently invited industrial property brokers to tour the 1.3-million-square-foot space at 7501 SW 29. They pitched it, with its 42- to 64-foot column spacing and 22- to 24-foot-high ceilings — competitive, but not the height of most new buildings — as move-in ready for manufacturers or distributors.

Most of the brokers, including a few in the commercial real estate business since the building went up in the 1970s, seemed ready to catch. Plus, they were just glad to see the space in use. When Bridgestone/Firestone closed the huge factory three years ago — it was 2.5 million square feet then — many in the business community were afraid it would sit dark for years.

Big Industrial came in with big ideas — bigger than those of a few local investors who checked out the space with an eye to buying it, but didn’t.

All some people saw was a huge outdated factory and warehouse, said Randy Lacey, industrial property broker with Grubb & Ellis-Levy Beffort.

Big Industrial, based in suburban Kansas City, Kan., with similar heavy-industrial conversions on its resume, saw another opportunity.

"It’s a complete turnaround of an old, antiquated manufacturing facility that couldn’t be changed to meet the market,” Lacey said.

Big Industrial took what could have been a 2.5-million-square-foot dead spot in the middle of the southwest Oklahoma City industrial district, Lacey said, and "brought it to life again, turned it around from something like a dinosaur to something like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon.”

Free steam for the property’s heating units, when available in an arrangement from Smith Cogeneration, a natural-gas-fired plant next door, doesn’t hurt, said Rich Schoenfeld, a real estate attorney and consultant for Big Industrial.

"I almost fell out of my chair,” he said, when early on in the company’s acquisition he learned of the features of the property. "From a real estate nerd’s perspective, this was a tremendous project.”

Producers Cooperative Oil Mill Inc., the cotton oil mill located just southeast of downtown for more than a century, came calling about a year ago.

Producers bought the factory building and 170 acres, paying $14.2 million, almost twice what Big Industrial paid for the entire former tire plant.

Big Industrial, which tends to buy and hold, acknowledges that it didn’t see that coming.

But the owners would have been as flexible with space without the unexpected windfall, said Todd Mendon, managing director of marketing.

The remaining 1.3 million square feet of space has 11 distinct sections ranging from around 100,000 to 120,000 square feet, Mendon said.

A mix of tenants with short- and long-term leases, willing to move a little this way or that as needed, keeps the allotment of space fluid, he said.

Government Liquidation, the national online auctioneer of U.S. military surplus property, occupies 300,000 square feet. Hobby Lobby has about 200,000 square feet. Other major tenants include D&M Distribution and Armstrong Logistics.

"We like to retain the flexibility and they do, as well,” Mendon said.

"It’s a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Will Rogers can accommodate a tenant wanting up to 500,000 square feet, said Rick Bywater, Big Industrial’s director of sales, marketing and acquisitions.

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