Chesapeake buys former Sun Corp. building

Chesapeake Real Estate Group has purchased the former Sun Products Corp. building in East Baltimore.

The former manufacturing site, located at 5300 Holabird Ave., includes more than 865,000 square feet of space on 46.9 acres near Interstate 95 and the Port of Baltimore. The site will be developed as an industrial warehouse park.

Cushman and Wakefield represented the seller, the Sun Products Corp.

The building is near the planned Amazon fulfillment center and is in an Enterprise Zone that allows for tax credits for real property and income tax credits for hiring economically disadvantage workers. The purchaser of the building would be eligible for an 80 percent tax credit on real property improvements for the first five years, which would be drawn down 10 percent a year until the credit reached 30 percent in the 10th and final year.

The purchaser would also be eligible to receive a one-time $1,000 income tax credit for each employee hired and a $6,000 tax credit over three years for each economically disadvantaged employee hired.

The Sun Products Corp., which manufactured detergents such as All, Snuggle and Wisk at the plant, announced its closure in February of 2014, and 300 employees were laid off.

The Connecticut-based company justified the closing because of “changing business needs” and said it was “not a reflection of the Baltimore community.” Production from the Baltimore plant was shifted to a facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Lever Bros. first operated the plant beginning in 1938 and The Sun Products Corp. took over operations in 2008.