Equipment auction
set for $300 million Alstom plant
“It’s beautiful. It’s not the typical auction sale where it’s mostly older and heavily run. It’s clean and a very well-maintained offering.” – JAMES GARDNER, PARTNER IN THE BRANFORD GROUP
An auction company plans to sell off equipment in the former Chattanooga Alstom steam turbine plant where $300 million was spent to build the factory just six years ago.
James Gardner, one of the partners in The Branford Group, said he expected the equipment in the steam turbine plant likely will fetch a multimillion-dollar figure for new owner GE Power.
“There’s a lot of equipment and support equipment useful for many manufacturing facilities,” he said. The online auction for the equipment in the 350,000-square-foot plant is slated for Dec. 7 and 8.
One of the unique features at the steam turbine site is that everything only dates to 2010 or after, Gardner said.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s not the typical auction sale where it’s mostly older and heavily run. It’s clean and a very well-maintained offering.”
In June, GE Power announced it was closing the steam turbine plant and two other adjacent facilities located off Riverfront Parkway, eliminating 235 jobs. About a year ago, U.S.-based GE completed a $10.6 billion acquisition of the power and transmission division of Francebased Alstom, including the Chattanooga facilities.
GE said last summer that the shut down of manufacturing at the Chattanooga site “while extremely difficult, is viewed as necessary to allow GE to manage costs and capacity in a very competitive market.”
Gardner said an auction
involving another facility on the Alstom campus could occur early next year, though nothing is scheduled.
He termed the steam turbine plant “state of the art … with some of the most advanced technology.”
Gardner said the pieces up for auction involve large-capacity equipment, overhead cranes, and smaller items such as grinders, drills, and bandsaws. In addition, he said, there are forklift trucks, work benches and cabinets.
Branford marketing director Jesse Gardner said the auction is expected to offer about 1,500 “lots” of goods.
“It’s a complete closure,” she said. “Everything will be cleaned out. Even items that don’t sell in the original auction, we do follow-ups and pretty much get everything sold.”
The marketing director said the hope is that the facility will be “completely clear” by year’s end.
GE Power spokeswoman Christine Horne said that while the layoffs at the former Alstom site aren’t completed yet, plans are to have production shut down by the end of the year.
In terms of the future of the site, she said the company is “currently assessing options” going forward.
GE has said that about 50 employees in engineering, commercial and other functions will remain in the city.
Last summer, Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger said GE had told him that Chattanooga and its workforce is attractive.
“I said ‘Please consider us for the future for anything that may develop,”’ he said.
Manufacturing on the Alstom site goes back more than 100 years. About 35 years ago, it was home to nearly 6,000 workers when it was owned by Combustion Engineering and was Chattanooga’s largest employer.
While the headcount fell over the following decades, a revival was envisioned in 2007 when Alstom announced plans to build the $300 million plant next to an existing factory that built replacement components for coal-fired facilities.
The new plant was expected to benefit from a nuclear renaissance, but an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011 and its Fukushima plant. Also, the energy market saw more of a demand for natural gas-fired plants.