Disney’s announcement in late May it would consolidate its Jonesville distribution center with a Memphis location over the next year and cease operations at its Union County facility took a lot of people by surprise.

That was nearly two months ago.

The shock has had time to settle but the commitment of the county’s leadership to fill the Disney building with a new enterprise and help those nearly 200 employees affected by the company’s decision is just as strong as it was the day the news broke.

Union County Development Board Executive Director Andrena Powell-Baker said Thursday her office is aggressively pursuing all options for the building and has been since the day of Disney’s announcement.

“We are staying in front of the leaders of Disney and the owners of the building,” Powell-Baker said.

In the time since the announcement was made, the development board has pulled together all the information needed to market the facility in northern Union County, including the attributes of the entire workforce currently in the building and all the specifications of the facility.

“We are able to go out and tell potential companies this is what we have, the number of people who hold each job title and what all of their skills are,” Powell-Baker said.

The stage is set.

“Right now, the development board, the Department of Commerce and the Upstate Alliance, are set to begin marketing the facility and its workforce,” Powell-Baker said.

The only problem is that they can’t.

“The challenge we face now is that Disney has not given us permission to start our marketing initiatives yet,” the development board director said.

That decision on Disney’s part is disappointing to Powell-Baker.

“I have compelled them to take ownership of this,” she said, adding the company has already contacted a realtor of its choice but has yet to release the building to that firm.

It’s a frustrating limbo the county sits in now as it waits to hear from Disney when marketing the Jonesville facility can begin, especially when there’s already been interest in the location — some coming as soon as the day after the announcement was made.

Powell-Baker received five personal phone calls requesting information about the location from five major realtors but couldn’t give them anything because the county has not received the go ahead from Disney.

“So we have the interest,” Powell-Baker said.

The development board has access to a large database of industrial and commercial realtors it can pull from and Powell-Baker said the building information would be released to them as soon as it gets an OK to move forward.

The nearly 512,000 square foot building is owned by and leased through Panatonni Development Group based in Sacramento, CA. One of the company’s partners — Jack Van Volkenberg — even has Union County ties. His mother’s ancestors settled here when they came to the United States.

Van Volkenberg has dedicated himself to remain personally involved in the process of finding another occupant for the building and Powell-Baker said if there is anyone who will assist the county in its efforts it will be him.

“I knew that after just the second time I talked to him,” she said.

Powell-Baker has a sense that part of the reason Disney has yet to release the facility for marketing is that is still is in negotiations with Panatonni over the details of its lease.

“They still have a two-year lease left on the building,” she said.

Once everything is a go, the county — along with the South Carolina Department of Commerce and the Upstate Alliance — will be able to hit the ground running to find a new occupant for that location.

A location that has a building, according to Powell-Baker, almost markets itself.

“It is a phenomenal building,” she said. “This is not a building that is just going to sit there.”

Powell-Baker said one of the main aspects a prospective company or industry looks for if it plans on opening a facility or relocating is speed in doing so. The faster a company can move into a building that already has the necessary infrastructure helps to defer costs.

The existing Disney building already is more than 500,000 square feet and there is enough room on the property outside Jonesville for another 300,000 square feet of expansion.

“It is a perfect spec building,” Powell-Baker said. “That building is so almost perfect it could be used for a number of different operations.”

The location has enough space it would even be suitable for multiple uses with distribution, manufacturing, warehousing and logistics possibly under the same roof.

The county has not let the issue move any farther from its thoughts than it was the day of the announcement, according to Union County Supervisor Tommy Sinclair. He added work has been ongoing since day one.

But it now comes down to when Disney will give the agencies trying to locate prospective companies and industries the nod to go ahead.

That’s an OK Powell-Baker is hoping to have soon.

“We don’t want to run out of time,” she said. “We want to hit it while the iron is hot.” If it can, the county would even like to see a company move into the Disney building and none of the existing employees to ever have to walk out of the doors.

“It doesn’t have to have ‘Disney’ on it,” Powell-Baker said.

She just wants to get started as soon as possible. The development board director said instead of not seeing anything moving, once marketing initiatives can move forward the employees of the facility and the rest of Union County will not only see things happening but realize the dedication behind these efforts.

“We want to show them (the employees) we have not forgotten about them and that they are at the front and center of our minds,” Powell-Baker said.