The head of an Owens Corning roofing products plant in north metro Denver said Thursday his company would likely be forced to close the manufacturing operation permanently if RTD takes the property by eminent domain for a commuter rail maintenance facility.
The Regional Transportation District says the Owens Corning site, at 52nd Avenue and Fox Street in Adams County, just over the Denver-Adams boundary, is the preferred location for the $200 million rail maintenance center, which will repair and house about 100 rail cars used on four FasTracks commuter trains.
For several months, Owens Corning executives and company employees have been lobbying RTD to spare the roofing plant and select another location for the maintenance center.
RTD officials say if the transit agency exercises the power of eminent domain, it is obligated to pay acquisition and relocation costs to Owens Corning and other property owners based on federal and state law.
At a rally sponsored by Owens Corning Thursday, plant leader Bill Shockley said if the company’s land is taken by eminent domain, payment by RTD would likely “be tens of millions of dollars short of what we need to reproduce this facility.”
Owens Corning estimates it might cost $80 million and take up to three years to construct a new plant.
RTD spokeswoman Pauletta Tonilas said her agency now is trying to determine how much it would cost to acquire and relocate Owens Corning and three other businesses near the roofing manufacturer.
“We will assist them if they choose to relocate,” Tonilas said of Owens Corning, and RTD will “work with” the company on the timing for such a move.
At the company’s rally Thursday, Adams County Commissioner Alice Nichol read a letter she and the two other commissioners sent to RTD’s board chairman, stating, “We cannot support any decision by RTD to displace Owens Corning, its primary jobs and its importance to our region.”
“It’s a little ironic,” said Adams County Economic Development Vice President Frank Gray. “We have economic development groups trying to attract Fortune 500 companies and here we are pushing them away.”
The roofing factory and a nearby sister facility, an asphalt plant, employ about 100 people, Shockley said, though about 22 of the workers are on layoff because of the sluggish economy.
Owens Corning’s operation also supports another 100 jobs at suppliers that serve the roofing plant, Shockley added.
RTD earlier had looked at property near 31st Street and Ringsby Court in Denver — where the agency has a bus repair and storage operation — for the rail maintenance facility.
RTD was going to use some of its own land and some adjacent private property for the rail center, but an outcry from those living and working nearby — especially in the “Taxi” mixed-use development — helped push RTD to look for another location.
Some at the rally said RTD should consider returning the maintenance center to this Denver location, which was once also considered the “preferred” site.
Citing the costs, both financial and human, of RTD either relocating Owens Corning or forcing the closure of the roofing operation, company maintenance mechanic James Akard, 63, said, “I’m too old to find another job. They can find a cheaper place than this. We’ve got to keep our manufacturing base.”
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
