Alstom Power has sold a high-profile tract of land adjacent to its Chattanooga waterfront turbomachinery plant that at one time held bankrupt wind tower maker SIAG Aerisyn.
Talon Office Opportunities GP paid $3.5 million for the site, records show. Talon isn't revealing its plans, but the parcel is just a half-mile down Riverfront Parkway from about $100 million in new residential and commercial development that's going up.
The Alstom site that Talon Office bought is at 959 Windtower Drive, and some of it fronts Riverfront Parkway. It also holds large industrial bays in which SIAG Aerisyn employed about 100 people making the steel towers on which wind turbines were placed.
Alstom had leased the tract to SIAG Aerisyn, which ceased operations in Chattanooga in 2013.
Alstom spokeswoman Fallon McLoughlin said the company decided to sell the site because it wasn't utilized.
Charles B. Chitty, listed in Tennessee Secretary of State documents as the registered agent for Talon, declined comment on the deal and future plans.
Talon's address in the James Building on Broad Street is a 12th floor suite identified as the offices for DEW LLC. State records show DEW's registered agent is Hiren S. Desai, a principal in Chattanooga hotel developer and operator 3H Group Hotels.
Desai said he was a consultant in connection with the Alstom transaction and referred questions to DEW.
Desai's company put up a SpringHill Suites by Marriott hotel nearby off Riverfront Parkway about three years ago -- the first piece of the array of new development dubbed Cameron Harbor going up just north of Alstom.
The Alstom logo is displayed.The former SIAG Aerisyn parcel sits across Windtower Drive from a refurbished office building that holds state offices as well as the prepaid card services company TransCard.
Alstom's revamped turbomachinery plant, which the company spent $300 million upgrading before opening in 2010, sits behind the former SIAG Aerisyn tract. PSC Metals has operations on another side.
Aerisyn started in Chattanooga in 2005 with plans to employ as many as 220 people building the towers on which wind turbines are placed.
In August 2009, SIAG Schaaf acquired Aerisyn and announced plans to invest about $3 million into the business. That company had 10 production locations in Europe, Africa and America with 1,800 employees at the time.
But in 2012, SIAG Schaaf filed for insolvency in Germany in a Chapter 11-like bankruptcy. The SIAG Aerisyn plant continued to operate, though it suspended most production late that year.
SIAG Aerisyn, in its April 2012 Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition to reorganize its business, said the company had been losing "a significant amount of money over the past several years. ..." SIAG Aerisyn had relied on SIAG Schaaf in order to continue in business, the filing said.
SIAG Aerisyn's estimated liabilities when it filed bankruptcy were between $10 million and $50 million.
In June 2013, SIAG Aerisyn's bankruptcy petition was changed to Chapter 7, which involves liquidation rather than reorganization.
The case remains open in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chattanooga nearly three years later.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.