The March closure of the plant, spread over three titles on Dukes Rd and with a rateable value of $23 million, signals the end of a more than 22-year association of Appliances and the Mosgiel district which began after Appliances purchased Shacklock and moved to the site in the late-1970s.
In a shock move in mid-April, Appliances announced the loss of about 1000 manufacturing jobs in Dunedin, Brisbane and California, including 430 at Mosgiel, in favour of manufacturing sites in Thailand, Italy and Mexico.
The company cited the high New Zealand dollar, increasing manufacturing costs and maintaining its competitiveness as reasons for the move to foreign manufacturing.
The Mosgiel site includes workshops, warehousing, offices, a social room and training areas and the main clear-span, 8m-high factory covering about 21,700sq m, or 2.17ha.
Colliers International industrial broker Jonathan Lyttle said the property was one of the better quality manufacturing sites in the country and would be advertised internationally, until the closing date for offers on August 27.
Mr Lyttle said while the site would not formally go on the market until the weekend, there had already been inquiries from a "variety of sectors".
Aside from the Mosgiel site sale, Appliances has 4ha of greenfield land for sale next to its East Tamaki plant, which suffered a similar fate to Mosgiel when several hundred jobs were replaced by offshore manufacturing bases during the past two years.
Production at Mosgiel is due to cease by March and Appliances will leave by the end of June.
The company is looking for premises in Dunedin where it can relocate up to 90 engineering research and design staff and also establish a 40-person global call centre, with room for expansion.
The redundancy and closure costs were estimated at around $50 million, but offset by a similar levels of savings while capital expenditure of relocating at $100 million would similarly be offset by property sales worth up to $100 million, Appliances said when announcing the closure.
