The owner of the former site of the Homelite Jacobsenmanufacturing building is waiting for a comeback in the scrap metalmarket before she resumes cleaning Brookhaven’s largest pile ofrubbish, which is hindering her efforts to sell the property.

Nicolette Nguyen, owner of Houston-based Applied Principals,said she would contract to have the approximately 21-acre sitecleaned of its thousands of tons of twisted metal pending arecovery of the scrap steel market, which she hopes will occur inearly spring.

“There’s news out there that in the beginning of this year,starting maybe in March, the market for steel is going to pick backup,” she said. “And as soon it starts to, we’ll be back out thereto finish the job.”

Nguyen’s company purchased the Homelite Jacobsen building andits acreage at auction last April for $450,000 solely for its scrapsteel.

The building was demolished in late July, but few truckloads ofscrap were sold from the site before the scrap steel marketplummeted. Nguyen suspended the job in October when the price perton of scrap steel fell sharply – historically – putting herproject in the red.

Since then, Nguyen and her company have taken extra measures totry to stop the money loss incurred. She sent an objection to theHomelite Jacobsen property’s assessed value for the 2008 land rollto Lincoln County Tax Assessor Nancy Jordan over the Christmasholidays.

Lincoln County Board of Supervisors denied Nguyen’s requestMonday. The deadline for such protests passed five months ago inJuly 2008.

Nguyen is also in the midst of a dispute with Monticello’s KevinClaude Davis Excavation – the company she initially contracted todemolish the structure – for slightly more than $23,000. Companyowner Kevin Davis said he and Nguyen have entered into arbitrationover the matter.

Davis, who has a lien on the property and all scrap metal, saidNguyen owes the amount for a bad check and failure to make finalpayments on the contract. Nguyen claims Davis’ contract expired,adding that she would not work with him again.

“It’s gonna wind up costing me more than she owes me, really,”Davis said. “It’s really put me in a bind. I’ve had little jobs,but I haven’t had any money to back myself up to get any big jobsbecause of that (scrap material) out there.”

The entire affair has caused the cleanup of the site to grind toa halt, leaving behind an unsightly scene in the heart ofBrookhaven’s industrial park and drawing the ire of localgovernment officials. During Monday’s denial of the property valueobjection, one supervisor commented that Nguyen “gets the award forbiggest pile of garbage in the county.”

But Nguyen said she is eager to finish the job and sell theproperty – depending on the scrap steel market. However, herprediction of a scrap steel market rebound may not come to pass,experts suspect.

“It’s kind of like the stock market right now,” said SamShemper, a commercial buyer with Hattiesburg’s Ben Shemper andSons, who bought the few truckloads of scrap from Nguyen before shecalled off the job. “We feel like it’s going to get strongerbecause it went down so quickly, but there’s no guarantee.”

Shemper said the scrap steel market has continued to hover nearits all-time low since bottoming out in October, and the onlyprediction that prices will improve is based upon the outlook thatthey can’t go any lower.

In fact, the scrap steel market could always get worse. Shempersaid U.S. Steel’s layoff of more than 500 American employees inNovember and Toyota’s Wednesday announcement that it would suspendproduction for 11 days is foreboding news.

“That’s not good for the market,” he said.

Basically, Davis’ payments, Nguyen’s scrap and Brookhaven’sindustrial park are at the mercy of the market. The site willlikely remain cluttered and under Texas-based ownership untilthings improve.

“[I still plan to sell the property] unless my contract runsout, and time’s ticking on it now,” said Randy Wingfield ofWingfield Auctions, who auctioned the site to Applied Principalslast April. “I’ve been waiting on them to clean it up before I putforth any effort. If somebody says they want it, I’ll submit anywritten offers to the owner.”

Until the property is sold, the chance for further growth inBrookhaven’s industrial park – what local leaders hoped for whenthe Homelite Jacobsen building was initially auctioned – is onhold.

“The Industrial Development Foundation would like to see theproperty cleaned up as soon as possible,” said Brookhaven-LincolnCounty Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President CliffBrumfield. “However, had the new owners purchased the propertyundeveloped, they would have a certain amount of time to beginconstruction. We should also allow them the proper amount of timeto deconstruct.”

Brumfield said Nguyen’s holding off in the hopes of an improvedscrap steel market is understandable.