The City of Greenville is taking another step toward attracting new industry to the area.

At Monday’s meeting, the Greenville City Council voted to declare the Foster Manufacturing facility and its lot at the corner of Thames Street and Beeland Street as surplus in order to transfer the property to the Industrial Development Board of the City of Greenville (IDB). The city acquired the property in November of 2008 as a gift from Norman Feinberg.

Greenville Mayor Dexter McLendon said the move is “all about jobs.”

“This is just another opportunity for us to do something that will help us attract more industry to the area, which will create jobs for our people,” he said.

The city and the IDB will split the $18,000 cost of demolishing the building, which has fallen into disrepair. Greenville-based Southern Sand and Gravel will handle the demolition of the building.

“We’re going to get the lot cleaned up,” McLendon said. “The building isn’t fixable, so we’ll get it down and level up the site some to get it ready in case we find an industry that is interested in the site.”

McLendon said the site work will be crucial to attracting an industry.

“It’s important that we make the site as attractive as possible,” he said. “Right now it’s not very impressive, because of the shape the building is in. To be honest we haven’t ever shown that piece of property because the building was in such disrepair.”

If the property is sold, the city will give the profits of the sale to the IDB.

“We’ll allow the IDB to keep that money to use to attract other prospective businesses and industries to the city,” McLendon said. “You can never have enough money in your IDB account.”

Officials with the city will have the final say in allowing a prospective business to locate on the site, according to McLendon.