STERLING – The city has an new, old landmark, aptly renamed The Sterling Landmark.

Longtime Sterling residents know it as the Wayne-Dalton building, and even longer residents as Frantz Manufacturing.

In recent history, the historic blond behemoth at 301 W. Third St. downtown also has gone by Sterling Centers, and most recently as The Warehouse, a fitting description for its main purpose, as a place to store boats, RVs, big rigs and other vehicles.

But the more than 490,000-square-foot building, under new ownership for a year, is expanding in purpose as well as available space.

The three-floor former factory has a new roof, a spruced-up interior and thousands of square feet of available office space.

There’s even more space ready to be developed into more office suites, retail sites or even manufacturing space – whatever a new tenant might need.

The owners, 301 W 3rd Street Sterling Industrial of Forth Worth, Texas, and A1 AB LLC Auto & Boats, also recently bought the empty lot to the west, the former site of the Tri-County Opportunities Council’s PADS shelter, to increase parking space and access to the building and its multiple loading docks on the south and west sides.

They opened it Wednesday for tours, one of which was given by Landmark’s chief financial officer Karl Semancik Jr.

Heather Sotelo, executive director of the Greater Sterling Development Corp., took a look around.

“It’s always good for a community when outside investors come in and put money into Sterling,” Sotelo said. “They’ve put a lot of work into the building, and I’m excited to see what will be able to go in there in the future.

“They have built out new office space for small to mid-size businesses, with conference rooms available, and that is something we always need in the community,” Sotelo said.

The value of the massive structure has risen considerably with the improvements by each successive owner, and the improvements to the economy.

It was built in 1909 by Frantz Manufacturing, which made hardware roller skates, wooden toys and eventually garage doors, but now makes conveyor bearings and steel balls, still in its hometown.

Wayne-Dalton, a garage door manufacturer, bought the building in 1994, and closed up shop in February 2005.

Its most recent use was as a warehouse and shipping facility, but it was long vacant when Gabler Family Corp. bought it at auction in July 2008 for $225,000.

Sterling businessman Jim Gabler wanted the space to become a technology center that ultimately would create up to 500 jobs.

The U.S., however, was in a recession, and after putting thousands of dollars into the building, then known as Sterling Centers, as he got no takers. He rented storage space to several tenants, including Walmart Distribution Center and Wahl Clipper Corp.

He unsuccessfully put the building up for auction in June 2010, with a minimum bid of $900,000.

On Dec. 31, 2013, when he still couldn’t sell it, Gabler donated the building to Boston-based Helping Hands of America to help raise money for the nonprofit, a facilitator of larger-scale donations such as real estate and vehicles.

Helping Hands put it up for auction April 14, 2017, and John Dziedzic of Ashton bought it for $87,500 – less than 17 cents a square foot – although the minimum bid was to have been $100,000.

That sale fell through, however, and Colby Snyder, owner of Midwest Commercial Wholesale Auction in Sterling, bought it for $85,000.

The building was transferred to a land trust in 2017, and the trust sold it to Mike Wieland of Wieland Development in Winthrop, Iowa, for $727,000 in 2018.

In August 2022, Wieland sold it to the current owners for $2 million.

To learn more

Those interested in learning more about The Sterling Landmark and what is has to offer can call CFO Karl Semancik Jr. at 815-677-7918.