Ed Arnold, of the Golf Cart Company in Knox, announced at the Knox City Council meeting this week that he has sold the building on Heaton Street and must vacate soon.
Arnold gave a history of the building and business to the council members.
“Sixty-one years ago, my father decided to build a plant here in Knox, thirty years ago I purchased the building from him and the building has now been sold,” said Arnold. “We have relocated to a new facility in Grand Beach, Michigan, but it is our intent to keep a facility here in Knox as well because I have employees here that are important to me.”
Arnold said that he would like to relocate part of the business to a warehouse he owns that was originally part of Sellers-Oldsmobile. When he moved a construction trailer onto the property, he was informed that he had run into a problem because it was zoned residential.
“I presented some documents that show that in 1999, your tax office showed this is commercial property. Some years after that, I was informed that it had been changed. I thought how could it be changed? I was never notified. They said there was a notice in the paper and unfortunately I live in LaPorte and I don’t get the Knox paper. I thought at the time, should I go through the trouble of having it rezoned and I thought I’ll worry about that if I sell the place. That’s why I started the move into the facility.”
Arnold asked if some accommodation could be made that would allow him to keep the construction trailer on the property until he remodeled the building for an office. If not, he said he would be forced to move the entire business out of Knox.
“Unless we can expedite this process, I don’t have the time to wait. I need a decision in a week to ten days. If that can’t be done, then Knox is going to lose a business because they couldn’t move fast enough.”
Knox Building Inspector, Greg Matt, said Wednesday morning that he would try to call an emergency BZA meeting, but because of other meetings and advertising that would be necessary, the earliest would be on January 5th.
Mr. Arnold said yesterday that he was not at liberty to say who has purchased the Heaton Street building.
