Hendricks plans on demolishing Besly building in South Beloit

SOUTH BELOIT — Now that the dilapidated Garden Hotel has been reduced to a gravel field, South Beloit will get another addition by subtraction — Hendricks Commercial Properties confirmed it plans on tearing down the former Besly Products Corp. building directly north of the Garden Hotel site.

Rob Gerbitz, president and CEO of Hendricks Commercial Properties, said in an email that his company is “in the early process of preparing and getting the building ready for tear down some time later this year.”

Besly’s history in Beloit dates back to 1888 as a manufacturer of taps and small tools. Besly built the 115,700-square-foot building in South Beloit in 1952. It’s been closed as a manufacturing facility and office building since 2005 when Besly was sold and the new owners moved manufacturing operations to Asia. The company was making cutting tools, steel taps, drills, reamers, end mills and carbide tipped cutting tools at the South Beloit location when it was shut down.

According to online records, Hendricks bought the building in December 2005 for $570,500 with plans to move one of the manufacturing companies in its expanding portfolio of companies into the building. Instead, it’s mostly been used for short-term storage for the various Hendricks companies.

Hendricks has been highly successful in finding uses for old buildings in Beloit and in other cities such as Boise, Idaho, and Indianapolis. The Besly building is one of the rare instances where the company didn’t or couldn’t come up with a new use.

The Besly demolition will be the third major development on that stretch of Beloit and South Beloit. Directly north of the Besly building, just over the Wisconsin state line, is the former Ike’s Motel property, which sold to a Janesville-registered LLC earlier this year for $550,000. The new owners have not been in touch with Beloit about future plans for the property.