The City of Fayette has sold the industrial building in the J.T. Golden Industrial Park on the south side of town. Ausama and Mohamed Elrai, owners of Tubruck Investments LLC, purchased the building and an adjoining lot for $181,330.70, to expand their wholesale spice business, MNE’s Food Products.

MNE’s Food Products has for more than two decades operated out of a small building on Linn Street. Mr. Elrai said the company will move its production to the new building once the interior build-out is completed. “This place will serve our purpose,” he said.

“The existing place does not fit us anymore,” said Mr. Elrai. He also purchased the adjoining lot which already has water, sewer, and electrical services, for future expansion. “We are very excited,” he said.

“Fayette has been very good to us. We like Fayette,” said Mr. Elrai.

The businesses will continue to use the smaller building on Linn Street as an additional facility to produce organic spices, which must be housed in separate premises.

The city built the industrial building, also known as the “spec building,” in 1999, two years after the construction of the J.T. Golden Industrial Park was approved. At a price tag of $289,000, the 20,000 square-feet shell building was erected with the hope of attracting businesses to town. The building’s interior was largely unfinished so that potential businesses could customize the inside, which could have been divided up into as many as 10 sections. But despite the intent, the building has sat empty for more than two decades.

Ironically, the proposed industrial park and the business license for MNE’s Food Products happened to be approved at the same meeting of the Fayette City Council in April of 1997.