Rockland playing waiting game in effort to keep Van Baalen

ROCKLAND — The city should know by early next week whether its efforts to save Van Baalen Co. and its 150 jobs will be successful.

Van Baalen spokesman Larry Ingram said Friday that the company continued to engage in fruitful talks with state officials, and that while “we have no answers today, next week should have definitive answers. … We’re upbeat, that’s all I can tell you.”

The clothing firm has operated in Rockland since the 1930s. A phenomenal growth in merchandising its products, however, has left the company strapped for space. Company officials say they need to expand Van Baalen from its current 200,000 square feet of space to 600,000 square feet. There is no suitable building site in the city for such a facility.

Van Baalen officials announced in February that the firm was considering a move closer to its suppliers. The most attractive sites were said to be in the Carolinas, a region that has long been home to the textile industry.

In the beginning, Rockland was alone in its effort to convince the company to stay, but once Mayor Thomas Molloy accused the McKernan administration of dragging its feet on the issue, the state picked up the gauntlet.

Molloy commended the state recently for “working diligently” to put together an attractive package of economic incentives to assist Van Baalen’s expansion plans.

“We have given them the numbers,” Molloy said. “We are trying every way we can to find a way for them to stay in Rockland.”

While the state is focusing on a tax-increment financing plan to help Van Baalen, City Hall is attempting to leverage its neighbor, Owls Head, to develop a 114-acre site in that town as an industrial park. The parcel is adjacent to the city’s industrial park, making it easier to expand services such as city sewer and three-phase power into Owls Head. It is estimated that Van Baalen could require as much as 50 acres to meet its needs.

In July, some Owls Head residents expressed reservations, however, when the dual-community industrial park was proposed. They worried about the removal of taxable property from the roles, as well as the equitable disbursement of taxes paid by industrial park tenants between the city and town. There also is the question of how to manage the park.

Economic studies indicate that each dollar in payroll has an eight-fold rollover affect. Based on Van Baalen’s $3 million annual payroll, its employees can be credited with contributing a $24 million boost to the city’s economy.