Keiller finds new use for abandoned pair of jeans

Two former jeans factories owned and operated by Levi Strauss in Dundee and Bellshill are to be acquired by Dundee-based developer Keiller Estates. The plants, which employed around 1000 staff, were victims of a restructuring by the US denim garment manufacturer and closed at the end of March.

Keiller Estates, part of the James Keiller Group, specialises in finding new uses for redundant industrial premises. They have a portfolio of properties amounting to 2.5 million sqft, mainly in Tayside and Livingston, with around 90 tenants. A recent project was the Manhattan Works, a former jute mill in Dundee, where attractive workspace was created within the original shell. Manhattan Works is now two-thirds let to local companies and start-ups on leases of three to five years.

The Levi Strauss factory in Dundee is the biggest complex on Dunsinane industrial estate, dating back to the 1970s. According to Keiller MD Bruce Linton, it will be broken into units of around 20,000sqft. The Bellshill facility, on the Motherwell Food Park, is smaller, at 80,000sqft. At the same time as the Dundee plant closed, 185 jobs were lost there. Meanwhile, Henderson Global Investors (part of Pearl Assurance) has acquired the former Motorola microprocessor manufacturing plant at Easter Inch, Bathgate for around (pounds) 11 million.

lSights on sites: Page Six

Copyright 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.