JAY – Steve Barker’s long-term plan is to employ 50 people or more at SIB Enterprises.

He and his wife, Ida, of Jay are offering climate-controlled storage in the former G.H. Bass & Co. shoe factory on East Dixfield Road.

“My vision is to attract businesses that need files stored, security files and things that need to stay climate-controlled,” he said. The companies would bring the items to his dock and he’d take it from there, he said.

His long-term plan is to pick, pack and ship the inventory with a focus on Franklin County companies. But if he doesn’t find enough business there, he said, he’s going statewide to fill the three-story, 60,000-square-foot factory built in 1946.

“The sky’s the limit,” he said.

There is also a 2,000-square-foot office out front Barker plans to lease.

Barker has taken care of the building with its hardwood floors for 20 years as manager of Phillips-Van Heusen’s buildings. Barker said his grandfather helped construct the building he now owns.

“It’s just something I always wanted to do, own my own business,” he said.

He has 30 years of warehouse and storage experience, he said.

Barker was named last week as facilities manager of the former Bass warehouse distribution center on Weld Street in Wilton, which he oversaw for years. Nichols Development LLC now owns the eight-building complex.

He’ll have plenty of time to operate his own business, he said, with his wife doing the books and him doing the “wheeling and dealing.”

Barker said he is going to rent 12-foot by 18-foot units for $100 a month and 12-foot by 14-foot spaces for $75 a month. He also would rent a whole floor, which is 20,000 square feet, or a 5,000-square-foot section.

He said he’s open to any idea for the space. His phone numbers are 645-3064, 645-2354 and 491-1472.

He bought the property for a “very good deal,” he said, but there will be overhead operating expenses between $60,000 to $75,000 a year, he said.

The building is valued by the town as $432,200 and the land $14,900. Taxes paid combined is $7,064.18.

Barker said he had a real estate appraiser assess the building and it was valued at $190,000. He has already brought those figures to the town office, he said. The last appraisal by the town was done 10 years ago, he said, and that was when 30 people were working there.

There are no job opportunities at this point, he said, but once the building is filled with inventory, he’s hoping to employ 50 or more people.

It will be a secure, fully automated facility, he said. Products will come in, a bar code placed on them and then they would be scanned.

“I’m very excited,” he said. “It’s not to get rich; it’s to put people back to work. There are a lot of great people that need to be put back to work.”

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