This property in a portion of Whitehall’s industrial park remains vacant after a land deal for a small manufacturing facility fell through in 2012.

Koppel Tool and Engineering, which now works from a rented facility in nearby Spring Lake, has decided not to exercise a land deal with the City of Whitehall.

Whitehall City Manager Scott Huebler announced at the Jan. 2 Whitehall Planning Commission meeting that the land deal had fallen through. Huebler is a member of the planning commission.

The city was offering nearly six acres of land to Koppel for $1 an acre on which the company planned to build a 6,000 square foot facility and move its operations from Spring Lake.

The city’s Local Development Finance Authority (LDFA) agreed to sell the property on Ullmans Way to Koppel and pay for a survey of the land.

It would have been the first tenant on the 28 acres the city purchased from Muskegon County to expand the industrial park in the southeast corner of Whitehall.

However, that will not happen, according to Matt Koppel, owner-operater of the company which employs eight full-time workers and two part-time employees.

Koppel said the deal breaker was the unexpected additional excavation costs his builder estimated after testing soils at the site.