A roughly 142,000-square-foot building that formerly hosted the Waterbury Buckle Co., one of the last vestiges of Waterbury’s once-mighty brass-working industry, is up for sale.
The century-old, four-story building on 5.4 acres at 952 South Main St. went up for sale this week at an asking price of $900,000.
“It’s in fair condition but it will need some attention,” said broker Ed Godin Jr., of Godin Property Brokers. “Once we get a better handle on the environmentals, I think it will go quickly. It’s a lot of building for the money.”
The century-old, four-story building and its grounds have undergone “significant” environmental remediation, said Godin, who has the listing. He was waiting for further details from the seller.
The property is co-listed with Cushman & Wakefield.
Waterbury Buckle Co. was launched in 1853 at its current location, at a corner of South Main Street and the Mad River. It specialized in the manufacture of small metal objects, including buckles, clasps and slides, according to Preservation Connecticut. It employed 500 people by the mid-1930s and became a major supplier to the U.S. military during World War II.
By the 1980s, the workforce had dropped by more than half, and Waterbury Buckle was acquired by Illinois Tool Works Inc. in 1988. The Illinois firm shuttered the Waterbury building in 2012, as it consolidated production to other facilities.
The building sits in a section of Waterbury’s South End that was once heavily industrialized but which, in recent decades, has been host to several hulking abandoned, polluted and crumbling industrial complexes. Under Mayor Neil O’Leary’s nearly 12-year-old administration, Waterbury has begun acquiring and cleaning several of the largest and most prominent of these sites, using tens-of-millions of cleanup dollars solicited from state and federal environmental agencies.
O’Leary said he saw a for-sale sign on the building shortly after it went up on Friday. By Tuesday afternoon, O’Leary and an aide were touring the building with Godin.
Unlike several large industrial complexes nearby that were abandoned and left to crumble under the onslaught of water, weather and neglect, the Waterbury Buckle building was enclosed and alarmed, with newer roofs and sealed windows. O’Leary said the city isn’t likely to try to acquire the property because it does not need the sort of radical attention demanded by abandoned industrial complexes around it.
“Usually, we take the buildings in the poorest of conditions because nobody else will take them,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary said he toured Waterbury Buckle on Tuesday to be able to better market the property to companies that contact his office regularly seeking suggestions for available large industrial spaces.
“I looked through myself so when people call looking for things I know exactly what the building offers,” O’Leary said. “Fortunately for this building, it’s in very good condition.”
