Manufacturer seeks to buy large land site at RAC | Local News

ARK Prefab intends to create 330 jobs over the next five years and make $3 million in improvements to the site. 

42 West Earl Cummings Loop used to be the location of the Millennium Transit factory, a bus manufacturing operation that closed in 2008, according to past reporting.

The owner of the Millennium Transit Services building has a buyer planning to purchase the 420,000-square-foot building and use it. Millennium Transit Services LLC currently pays an annual rent of $15,000. They could remain there for as long as August 2059 — if all of the contracted lease extensions are exercised, the city’s staff report notes. 

Also included in the report is that this sales price is “approximately 45 times the value of the annual revenue.”

The city has owned the site since the closure of Walker Air Force Base in 1967. A property analysis included in the report states that a land sale to ARK Prefab would be the first such transaction since Walker shut down.

The city would have to pay to demolish the existing building, the report points out. 

In 1974, Transportation Manufacturing Corporation placed a Greyhound bus manufacturing business in Roswell and later built two manufacturing plants on the airport property they used. 

South of the location is 32 West Cummings Loop, which is under lease by Dean Baldwin and used for painting and servicing aircraft.

If the councilors agree to advertise the proposed ordinance for the public hearing, it could be heard in March.

One of two public hearings on the council’s agenda will be…