If you have $1.2 million and a little bit of imagination, Damon Carson might just have a real estate deal for you.
“When it comes to a prison, it’s going to take someone with some creativity,” said Damon Carson, owner of repurposedMATERIALS.
Carson is in the business of repurposing items that industry has deemed obsolete, into a new, second life.
“I think the easiest way to say it is that we’re an industrial thrift store,” Carson said.
Semi-trailer flooring becomes bar tops and table tops. Decommissioned fire hose becomes a bumper for a boat dock. Street sweeper brushes become back scratchers for livestock. Carson says he thinks it just takes a bit of creativity to keep products out of landfills.
“It’s just infuriating, I guess is a good word, to see perfectly good stuff, reusable stuff, going to the landfill,” Carson said.
He’s had his business since 2010, and has expanded it to five states. Now, he is expanding even further, into the real estate market with the correctional facility in Brush, which closed in 2010.
“The toughest part of this was convincing my wife that this was really no different than buying fire hose and finding a repurpose market for it,” Carson said.
Tyler Purvis, spokesperson with the town of Brush, says they are open to working with a new buyer, and are excited for the possibility of new jobs in the area.
“For a community of this size that could be huge, and that’s exactly what we’re striving for,” said Purvis. “Any kind of economical increase we embrace.”
Purvis says they have had some strange requests.
“We’ve had some people contact us that wanted to rent it out to do nerf gun wars, and military training with airsoft guns,” Purvis said.
Carson has some other ideas for potential buyers. The eight-inch concrete walls, floors, and ceilings provide extra security.
“It’s first life it was trying to keep people on the inside from getting out, in a second life it could be trying to keep people from the outside, in,” Carson said. “I’m thinking biotech research center, document storage, maybe even a warehouse storing valuable assets.”
To learn more about repurposedMATERIALS, go to their website: http://www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com/
