Investor buys Morgan Olson facility in Pittsylvania

An investment buyer has purchased the 927,500-square-foot Morgan Olson manufacturing facility at the Cane Creek Centre industrial park in Pittsylvania County, according to an announcement distributed Thursday by Glen Allen-based real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer.

Corrie Bobe, director of economic development and tourism for Danville, wrote in an email Thursday afternoon that the buyer is Preferred Investments, a Florida-based real estate development firm.

“The offering generated significant investor interest, resulting in a competitive marketing process and strong buyer demand for the large-scale industrial facility,” the Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer news release said.

According to that release, the buyer of the property at 100 Morgan Olson Way, which Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer called “one of the most significant assets in the Danville region,” plans to lease the facility to an operating tenant, according to the release.

The firm did not disclose the price paid for the facility.

Pittsylvania County, Preferred Investments, Morgan Olson and Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Back in 2006, Swedwood North America, a subsidiary of furniture retailer Ikea, announced plans to invest $281 million to build a manufacturing facility at Cane Creek Centre. The site, which opened in 2008, was the company’s first U.S. manufacturing operation.

In the summer of 2019, Ikea announced plans to close the operation and move production to an existing facility in Europe where production costs were cheaper. About 300 employees lost their jobs.

But the facility didn’t have a chance to sit idle. By October 2019, then-Gov. Ralph Northam had announced Morgan Olson, a manufacturer of walk-in delivery vans, planned to invest $57.8 million to bring its operations to the facility. The company, which is a business unit of Texas-based JB Poindexter & Co., expected to create 703 jobs.

By 2022, the facility employed 612 workers, according to news reports.

But things changed. Morgan Olson laid off 435 employees at Cane Creek Centre in 2023 and an additional 130 in August 2024.

In late 2024, the Virginia Port Authority announced Morgan Olson had paid back a $500,000 grant because the manufacturer failed to maintain at least 574 full-time positions at the Cane Creek Centre from 2022 to 2025.

Matt Rowe, economic development director for Pittsylvania County, told Virginia Business in December 2024 that there was currently only “limited staff in the facility.”

An entity called Ikea Industry Danville sold the property to the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority for about $24.81 million in 2019, according to county records. The following year, the RIFA sold the property for the same amount to an entity called Poindexter Properties, which shares an address with JB Poindexter & Co.

The seller of 100 Morgan Olson Way was represented by Ben Brenner and Jake Hermann of Cushman & Wakefield, along with Davis Stoneburner, Price Gutshall and Rett Turner of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, according to the news report.