For more than 40 years, Davol Inc. occupied the industrial building near 23rd Street and Haskell Avenue and manufactured a variety of medical devices.

When the company closed the plant last spring — as part of a restructuring plan expected to save $20 million a year — it left behind an empty 211,211-square-foot facility so large that, paired with floundering economic times, was expected to be difficult to fill.

Almost a year later, the building remains vacant, but it has a new owner who expects to fill it.

Big Industrial LLC, a Prairie Village-based company that specializes in finding multiple tenants for large, vacant industrial buildings, purchased the building at 700 E. 22nd St. in September.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but county records list the building’s appraised value at $5.5 million.

Todd Mendon, managing director for Big Industrial LLC, said his company bought the former Davol facility because it saw economic promise in Lawrence.

“We have a great deal of knowledge of Lawrence and we like the community,” Mendon said. “The business climate is good, and there seems to be a momentum trend in that area, especially with Serologicals Corp. moving in there. We’re still bullish on Lawrence.”

Despite his optimism, Mendon admitted business has been slow so far. He’s had one short-term tenant in the facility, and Davol has leased space at the north end of the building, but Mendon said 80 percent of the building remained available.

“We have continued to aggressively market the building to all types of users,” Mendon said, “and we will continue to do so until we have the building full.”

Given the current economic doldrums, Mendon said it would be difficult to find one tenant to occupy all of the space. That’s why Big Industrial opted to break the building into smaller suites and try to recruit multiple smaller tenants.

Todd Mendon, managing director for Big Industrial LLC, said his company bought the Davol facility, 700 E. 22nd St., because of Lawrence's business

Mendon said the plant had about 20,000 square feet of potential office or laboratory space, 60,000 square feet of air-conditioned manufacturing space, and more than 100,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution space.

The company has divided that space into seven suites to meet the needs of smaller tenants. Still, even with smaller spaces available, locating tenants has not been easy.

“We had some early activity when people were first aware we had acquired the building,” Mendon said, “and we continue to have discussions with those people, but lately it has been quiet with new activity. I think it has been related to the economic conditions, but we’re seeing it start to change.

“We’re still confident that we have a good, strong building that is conditioned as such that it’s probably one of the better bargains in Lawrence. We’ve offered it at very aggressive lease rates, and we’re still confident that we’ll fill it.”