THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604040329
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Two months of secret negotiations ended this week when TCOM, a burned-out blimp manufacturer, bought the huge Weeksville airship hangar that has been used for 30 years by IXL Corp. as a kitchen-cabinet factory.
Company officials in Texas and Maryland on Wednesday refused to reveal the sale price, saying only that it was a ``sensitive issue.'' The IXL hangar and manufacturing equipment is valued at $3,648,425 on the Pasquotank County tax books.
``This acquisition will enable TCOM to maintain a permanent presence in the Elizabeth City area,'' said James Bitonti, chief executive officer for TCOM at the company's corporate headquarters in Columbia, Md.
TCOM lost most of its facilities when fire last August destroyed another former U.S. Navy hanger at Weeksville where TCOM had been building aerostats - the blimplike tethered balloons used to carry surveillance equipment aloft.
TCOM's burned hangar was considered one of the largest wooden structures in the world. It was 100 feet longer than the 960-foot, mostly steel structure that TCOM agreed to buy on Tuesday.
But while the move back to a hangar will be appropriate for TCOM, which now builds aerostats in a former Elizabeth City Kmart store, the sale will be hard on more than 100 employes of IXL who will lose their jobs here.
IXL is owned by Triangle-Pacific Corp., of Dallas, and officials there said every effort would be made to find jobs for those who will be forced out when IXL closes down in June.
``Triangle-Pacific is the largest hardwood flooring manufacturer in the nation and we also operate several cabinet manufacturing plants besides IXL,'' said Robert Symon , chief financial officer of Triangle-Pacific.
``We will offer jobs to some of those who wish to leave Elizabeth City, and we have also been assured that TCOM is interested in interviewing some of the IXL employes,'' Symon said.
He refused to discuss the sale price of the hangar to TCOM.
``It's a sensitive matter, particularly with TCOM, and we agreed not to discuss it publicly,'' Symon added.
Courthouse records show that Triangle-Pacific got a $26,275.86 tax bill as of Sept. 1, 1995, but there was no indication of how the taxes would be settled in this week's sale.
Ever since the fire, TCOM has been looking for a more permanent manufacturing site in this area, according to Randy Harrell, director of the Pasquotank County Industrial Development Commission.
Harrell played a major role in finding temporary quarters in the former Kmart building on Ehringhaus Street that allowed TCOM to continue operating after the disastrous fire.
The two huge hangars at the onetime U.S. Navy airship base on the Pasquotank River at Weeksville were familiar Albemarle landmarks after World War II.
During that war, the hangars held the blimps that ran antisubmarine patrols off the Atlantic Coast. Until the blimps took over, German subs were winning the Battle of the Atlantic by sinking millions of tons of cargo ships carrying Allied supplies to Europe.
The ability of the blimps to range far at sea to locate the subs with radar to assist hunter-killer destroyers was a turning point of World War II.
The remaining blimp hangar at Weeksville looks like a gigantic beached whale when it is first sighted by boats coming up the Pasquotank River from Albemarle Sound. by CNB