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Hard at work

Auto Parkit continues renovations at GE building

Tribune Chronicle / R. Michael Semple Welder Cody Barnes of Warren mig welds catwalks for the parking garages being produced at Auto Parkit. The company is operating out of the former General Electric facility because Alan’s original site, the former Packard Electric facility, is in bankruptcy court. Alan said he has invested about $1 million into the site so far.

WARREN — Christopher Alan has been moving forward with the renovation of the former GE facility purchased by Dasher-Lawless in May 2017 as an alternative to build his Auto Parkit manufacturing facility if the company is not successful in buying the former Packard Electric facility at 408 Dana St.

Dasher-Lawless is a subsidiary of Auto Parkit.

“We invested about $1 million, including its purchase price, into the GE plant,” Alan said on Thursday. “We’ve been adding manufacturing equipment to the building.”

Auto Parkit is in the process of filling its first two orders, with a combined value of $17 million, from the Warren facility. One of the projects is providing a 277-car automated parking facility that will be on the campus of a work-live-play facility, called Inclave, in Marina Del Rey, Calif.

Because the former GE building has been empty for more than 10 years, Alan said it required a lot of work to get it up to standards.

“There were areas of the roof and the floors that needed to be replaced,” Alan said. “We are modernizing the space.”

At the time of its purchase, Alan noted the building needed significant renovations for office space. The building’s biggest drawback is it is not large enough to do the type of manufacturing that had been planned at the former Packard Electric buildings.

When Alan came back to his hometown in 2015, he leased the former Delphi Packard building from Maximus III Properties LLC, which is owned by Sergio DiPaolo, with the intention of buying it within a year. However, since that time, Alan and DiPaolo have not been able to come up with a settlement.

DiPaolo said previously Alan has not been able to come up with the payment.

Maximus III Properties LLC filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against Dorian Capital, which is representing the Auto Parkit lease, for breach of contract.

Alan said his company stopped working on the Packard Electric site once DiPaolo filed the lawsuit.

Maximus III Properties LLC has fallen behind on the property taxes owed to Trumbull County. The Trumbull County Auditor’s website last week showed that Maximus II Properties owes more than $281,000 in back taxes to the county.

Maximus III Properties filed for bankruptcy protection last September to stop the sheriff sale of the property. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kay Woods ruled on Feb. 2 the court would not allow Maximus III Properties LLC’s bankruptcy filing to change from Chapter 7 to Chapter 11. The decision may lay the groundwork needed for the bankruptcy trustee to sell the property.

Alan is interested in purchasing the former Packard Electric site and is hopeful the bankruptcy court’s recent decision will lead to a resolution within the next month. Alan said he has spent more than $107,000 in litigation costs.

“We are hopeful,” Alan said. “However, we thought this was coming to an end six months ago.”

Alan said the work required to purchase and develop the former Packard Electric site has been significantly more difficult than initially anticipated.

Although he still wants to build the Auto Parkit architectural design and manufacturing facility at the 322,000-square foot former Packard Electric site, Alan said he already has identified a backup location.

He first announced his intention to build the manufacturing facility in October 2015.

On Thursday, Alan said he has 16 full-time employees right now and hopes to have 40 by the end of the year if the purchase of the Delphi site is successful.

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